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Rh had to submit to new masters. Constantine IV (668-685) and Justinian II (685-695) managed for a time to reconquer parts of the land, but each time the Arabs came back.

Armenia is handed about between the empire and the Khalif. The people were already Monophysites; the Romans persecuted them almost as much as the Moslems. On the whole, the Arabs held the country most of the time and ravaged it without mercy. Then a native prince, Ashot I, in 856 succeeded in founding a dynasty (the Bagratids) under the supremacy of the Khalif. He ruled at Ani on the river Arpachai, south-east of Kars, over a considerable territory, including Iberia. This line of semi-independent Kings of Armenia lasted two centuries (856-1071); it was not altogether an unhappy time for the country, though there were continual wars with neighbouring Moslem Amirs, who acknowledged the suzerainty of the same Khalif. Then the Selǵūk Turks under Alp Arslan (p. 27) devastate Armenia. Gagik II (1042-1045), the last king of this line, is taken to Constantinople. In 1064 Alp Arslan took Ani; in 1071 its cathedral is turned into a mosque. After that the Byzantines, Turks and Tatars seize parts of the country and fight over it; but some small native princes manage to maintain their independence. The systematic devastation of the country by the Turks put an end to Armenia itself as a state. The original home of the race (Greater Armenia) was never again a political unit. During this period of devastation by the Turks, and then again by the Mongols in the 13th century (p. 97), began the great exodus of Armenians. Fleeing from the horrors of their fatherland, great numbers wandered out to seek peace abroad. They came to Asia Minor, Persia, Thrace, Macedonia, as far as the Danube, to South Russia,