Page:The History of Armenia - Avdall - Volume 1.djvu/109

 HISTORY OF ARMENIA. Page 64

Black Sea to commemorate his victory. This prince had a spear with a round sharp head, which had a peculiar property from the circumstance of its having been dipped in the blood of certain venomous reptiles. As he was walking on the shore of the Black Sea, he threw this spear at the statue before-mentioned, when, strange to relate, it entered the pedestal with as much ease as if it had been clay. The pedestal was an immense mass of rock shaped like a mill-stone. The statue of which we speak was worshipped for a considerable time by the people of Pontus, who regarded it as the work of the gods. On a fresh rupture breaking out between them and Artaces, the son of Arsaces, they threw it into the sea.

Arsaces was extremely bigoted in religion and in his reign commenced an unjust persecution of the Jews. Observing that the Bagratians, of whose origin the reader is already aware, did not worship the idols of the country, he put two of them to death, and issued a proclamation by which they were forbidden all intercourse with women, unless they bound themselves by oath not to circumcise their children and to neglect the observance of their sabbath. The poor Bagratians having no hopes of milder usage if they contested the point, complied with this most unjust decree, but did