II. P'awstos Buzand


Information pertinent to the study of dayeakut'iwn and child custody in fourth century Armenia is found also in P'awstos Buzand's History of Armenia. P'awstos, about whom almost nothing is known, was a fervent supporter of the ambitions of the fourth century Mamikoneans. As a result, his History, despite its title, is less a history of Armenia than a partisan account of the role of the Mamikonean family in Armenian affairs. Despite this bias, P'awstos' work is our major source for the political, military, religious, and social history of fourth century Armenia, a society which practiced dayeakut'iwn. This exposition shall follow P'awstos' own chronological approach which describes in order the reigns of Armenia's kings from 330-387.

Allusions to dayeakut'iwn abound from the period of King Xosrov II Kotak (ruled 330-339), the son and successor of Trdat. During this monarch's turbulent reign, when Iran milltarily and culturally sought to dominate the Armenian highlands, a number of important Armenian lords sided with Iran and tried to withdraw from allegiamce to the Armenian Crown. In addition, warfare among the Armenian lordly clans threatened Arsacid rule. King Xosrov, supported by his sparapet (commander-in-chief) Vach'e Mamikonean moved against the rebels with the aim of exterminating their clans. P'awstos Buzand records several instances of this:

In that period a great agitation arose in the land of Armenia. For two great naxarars and princes, holders of districts and lords of lands (gawarhakalk ashxarhateark'), became each other's enemies and with great rancor stirred up a fight, warring with one another without justice. The prince of the Manawazean tohm and the nahapet of the Orduni tohm thus disturbed the great land of Armenia. They engaged each other in warfare and many people were killed...[The reconcilialion attempts of King Xosrov and Archbishop Vrt'anes fail]... With great anger and wrath the king sent against them Vach'e, son of Artawazd, nahapet of the Mamikonean tohm from the azg of the sparapetut'iwn of Armenia, a great general with his troops to kill and destroy those two azgs. The general Vach'e went and struck at those two azgs and did not leave a single male child alive (12).

Apparently the extermination was complete, since no more is known of either House. A similar fate befell the House of Bzhnunik' after the desertion to the Iranians of Databe Bzhnunik', the commander of an Armenian army (13). King Xosrov also encountered resistance from the rebellious prince of Aghdznik', a district in southwestern historical Armenia:

In that period there rebelled from the king of Armenia one of his servants, the great prince of Aghdznik' who was called the bdeashx [an individual] who occupied one of the four senior gahs [thrones] in the royal chamber. He extended his hand in alliance to the king of Iran and betrayed the royal tun [House] which he himself had supported. The king of Iran sent troops to support him and [Aghdznik'] was separated from the authority of Armenia. He warred with the king of Armenia using the power of the kingdom of Iran... [King Xosrov's supporters attack Aghdznik'] They went and conquered the Iranian troops, putting all of them to the sword, and kiiling the bdeashx with his brothers and sons. But they brought to the king the head of Bakur the bdeashx, and also one of his newborn daughters. Since there were no other survivors of that azg, the king gave the girl in marriage to his favorite, Vaghinak Siwnik', and also gave him the tun of Aghdznik', making him bdeashx and inheritor of [Bakur's] tun. The heir increased and the bdeashx Vaghinak remained in service to the king constantly, with the land and all its might. However, a certain small son of Bakur the bdeashx fled and landed by Vach'e, the general of Armenia where he was concealed and spared in [Vach'e's] tun. Subsequently [the child] returned and seized his own tun. His name was Xesha (14).

The above quotations shed light on the practice of confiscation of land by the crown and on the role of the dayeak in fourth century Armenia. Apparently, if the crown successfully eliminated a recalcitrant House, it could do as it pleased with that House's properties and even hereditary offices--if the Crown was strong enough and if there were no surviving children (15). In the last quotation, King Xosrov designated lord Vaghinak of the House of Siwnik' as the inheritor of Aghdznlk' and of the title of bdeasx. This was legitimized by the "marriage" of Vaghinak to an infant daughter of the slain bdeasx Bakur. Such an expansion of power for the House of Siwnik' probably was resented by the other naxarar Houses, including the Mamikoneans. Thus it was Xosrov's loyal sparapet Vach'e Mamikonean (who had exterminated three other clans at Xosrov's orders) who now protected and supported the rights of the sole-surviving male heir of the legitimate bdeashx of Aghdznik'. With the aid of the Mamikoneans, the property and title of the bdeashx of Aghdznik' were returned to Xesha, and (equally or more important) repossessed from the lord of Siwnik'.

At the end of Xosrov's reign (ca. 338/39), sparapet Vach'e died fighting Iran. The importance of the guardianship of noble children is seen once more in P'awstos' account of Vach'e's small son, Artawazd. In this instance, the child's guardians also controlled the Mamikoneans' hereditary office of sparapet during their ward's minority:

...General Vach'e had a son who was a very small boy, named after his grandfather, Artawazd. They placed him on the pillow of his patrimonial gah [throne], and in the presence of the king, they placed his father's patiw [diadem] on his head and put him in the sparapetut'iwn of his father. For [Artawazd] was the son of a very meritorious [individual], and of a very meritorious azg and [furthermore] there was no other [individual] in that azg who was robust, since they had died in the great war. The affairs of the generalship were assumed by Arshawir Kamsarakan, prince of Shirak and the district of Arsharunik', and by Andovk, prince of Siwnik', since they were brothers-in-law of the tun [House] of the Mamikonean tohm. The great archbishop Vrt'anes and the king ordered Arshawir and Andovk to raise the lad Artawzd so that he might occupy the position of his ancestors and of his father...(16).

Information from the reign of King Tiran (339-350), son and successor of Xosrov, also reflects the importance of child custody, in times of peace and conflict. According to P'awstos, Tiran himself (before he ruled as king) served as the "guardian" of Yusik, Gregory the Illuminator's only grandson and heir to Armenia's hereditary kat'oghikosate (17). Tiran gave his daughter in marriage to Yusik (who was still a child) in the hopes that his own grandsons would occupy the kat'oghikosate after Yusik. Later, Yusik's two sons married Tiran's sisters (18). King Tiran shared the Iranian cultural-religious sympathies of many of his naxarars. Yusik, as head of the Armenian Church, reprimanded and denounced the king and the lords for turning from Christianity. But Tiran did not brook any insubordination and he had his former ward, Yusik, murdered. Tiran's assistant in trying to break the power of the naxarar Houses and the Church was an official named Hayr:

...There was one impious and diabolical man who surpassed all the rest, and who aggravated king Tiran against the naxarar azgs. This was the eunuch Hayr, who held the patiw of the great mardpetut'iwn, a wicked-hearted, malicious malefactor. Through slander he effected the destnuction of many naxarars who had committed no crimes, and he disrupted the great lordship of the kingdom. In particular through his slander he managed to have two senior tohms--the Rheshtunik' tohm and the Artsrunik' tohm--put to the sword and [almost] entirely wiped out, without them committing any crime or fault, and they even destroyed the women of [those] azgs. Then two children, caught in the scandal had found refuge by fleeing to dayeaks; one was Tachat, son of Mehendak Erheshtunik', the other, Shawasp, son of Vach'e Artsrunik', both suckling children. They were brought before the king. When [Tiran] saw them, he ordered that they be beheaded, for they were the only progeny of those azgs. Now it happened that Artawazd and Vasak, men of the Mamikonean tohm, were present. They seized the little boys, each one taking one under his arm, and rushed out with their weapons aloft, ready to figh and die for those children. Although [the Mamikoneans] had been raising the king's son Arshak, nonetheless, angered at the deeds of that time, they left their charge Arshak and quit the royal banak. They went to their land, to the strongholds of Tayk', remaining there many years with their families, leaving their other home. They raised those children, Shawasp and Tachat, married their daughters to them, and regenerated those azgs. And they did not engage in Armenian councils for many years (19).

The passage above describes two instances of dayeakut'iwn, both involving the Mamikonean family. In the first case, the Mamikonean lords Artawazd and Vasak rescued the doomed infant survivors of the Rheshtunik' and Artsrunik' Houses, and (with Mamikonean women) regenerated both Houses. In the second instance, the Mamikoneans (who had been serving as dayeaks of the crown-prince Arshak) returned Arshak to the king and withdrew from the Arsacid court in protest.

King Arshak, son of Tiran, ruled from ca. 350-367. Upon ascending to the throne, one of his first acts was to repair relations with the various naxarar Houses which had been alienated by Tiran:

At that time king Arshak raised the question of the tohm of the generals, the azg of the Mamikonean braves, especially since they had been his dayeaks and nourishers. He went and found them in the strongholds of their land of Tayk' and brought them back into confidence; for during the period of Tiran's madness, they had split away and broken off communication, and had withdrawn from all Armenian affairs The king estahlished the senior brother Vardan in the nahapetut'iwn of his azg; the middle brother, Vasak, his dayeak, in the sparapetut'iwn, the generalship in charge of military affairs; and the youngest was appointed [to look after] the needs of the troops Similarly, all the azgs of the troops of the grandee nahapets were returned, as had been the case under former kings, each to his proper level (20).

However, Arshak too, like his father before him, had problems with certain naxarar families. Arshak also tried to exterminate a house. But in this he was thwarted by his own dayeak, who became the preserver of yet another lordship:

Now, when the blessed archbishop Nerses had quit the royal banak, there was no one to reproach the king or give contrary counsel, and so [Arshak] went along according to his evil wishes. He destroyed many of the naxarars, extirpated many azgs, and confiscated many tuns for the court. He extirpated the tohms of the Kamsarakans who were the lords of districts, of Shirak and Arsharunik', and he made [their] districts ostan. However, the general of Armenia, the sparapet Vasak, concealed and saved a tiny child from that azg, named Spandarat, who subsequently became the inheritor of [their] land (21).

King Arshak's reign was characterized by frequent Iranian invasions, the most destructive of which (in 364-367) ruined eight Armenian cities. Many of the prominent Armenian lords, weary of fighting against Iran, joined the enemy until King Arshak was almost completeIy deserted and was forced by his own naxarars to go to Iran to make peace with the shah. Taking along his dayeak Vasak Mamikonean, Arshak went to Iran, where both died in captivity (22).

The heir to the Armenian throne Pap, son of Arshak, was in Byzantium (as a royal hostage) at the time of his father's arrest in 367. Sparapet Mushegh Mamikonean, (son of the former sparapet Vasak) led a delegation of Armenian naxarars to Byzantium requesting Pap's release (23); The request was granted and the delegation returned to Armenia with the new king. During Pap's reign as king (368-374), sparapet Mushegh Mamikonean recaptured or conquered a number of Armenian districts which had rebelled from the Arsacids as well as Albanian, Iranian, and Iberian (Georgian) territories (24). Mushegh participated in the partial extermination of the rebel bdeashx houses of Gugark' and Aghdznik' (25).

King Pap was assassinated by Byzantine generals who resented his increasingly pro-lranian posture (26). After Pap's murder, the Byzantines placed on the Armenian throne an Arsacid named Varazdat (374-378). "He was a youth, full of bravery, with powerful hands and a brave heart, but light-minded, with a child's capricious cunning"(27). Sparapet Mushegh Mamikonean is described as "offering good advice to the young king Varazdat" (28), but it was Varazdat's dayeak Bat Saharhuni who directed Varazdat's actions:

Bat, the nahapet of the azg of the Saharhuni tohm, was the dayeak-nourisher of king Varazdat. He wanted to appropriate for himself Mushegh's position of general-sparapet. Consequently, he began to slander [Mushegh] to his san [foster-child], king Varazdat... [People] were constantly provoking the king with such words secretly, until [Varazdat] agreed with their wishes, to kill the sparapet general of Armenia (29)."

Varazdat had Mushegh murdered and "put his dayeak Bat, nahapet of the Saharhunik' tohm, the slanderous tale-bearing murderer of Mushegh, in the position of the generalship-sparapetut'iwn"(30). However, this arrangement did not last long. Manuel Mamikonean (Mushegh's brother), having returned from military service in eastern Iran, "seized for himself the generalship-sparapetut'iwn without the order of King Varazdat" (31). Soon thereafter Manuel expelled King Varazdat from Armenia and killed Bat Saharhuni (32).

From 378 until his death in 385, Manuel Mamikonean was the real ruler of Armenia. He ruled not as king, but as a "trustee" of the monarchy. According to P'awstos:

[Manuel] took king Pap's wife, tikin Zarmanduxt with [her] Arsacid sons, keeping [them] in the king's place [and] causing them to circulate around in honor. As long as Manuel lived he greatly led the land of Armenia with great wisdom and much success. Of the two Arsacid lads, the senior one was named Arshak, and the junior one Vagharshak. Sparapet Manuel nourished them as sans (foster-children) and honored their mother Zarmanduxt in the great glory of the tiknut'iwn (33).

Manuel was serving as the dayeak of the royal princes. And he planned to deepen his family's relations with the royal House:

After all of this, general sparapet Manuel went to the district of Karin taking along the Arsacid tikin, the two youths Arshak and Vagharshak, and all the Armenian banak with the grandee nobility of naxarars, and all the tanuters. Sparapet Manuel married his own daughter Vardanduxt to the youth Arshak Arshakuni, making him his son-in-law (34).

But after Manuel's death in 385, a group of influential naxarars went to the shah of Iran and requested another king from Armenia's royal Arsacid line. This group returned to Armenia with an Iranian army and Arshak fled to the western districts of historical Armenia. By agreement between Byzantium and Iran, Armenia was thus divided (387) into sectors of Greek and Iranian overlordship. P'awstos' History ends with an account of the division of 387.

The few but important quotations from P'awstos pertaining to dayeakut'iwn point to the pervasiveness of this institution in naxarar life of fourth century Armenia. There is at least one reference for the reign of each of the fourth century Armenian kings. P'awstos' focus on the Mamikonean family somewhat conditions the information presented, but even so, the function of dayeakut'iwn among the naxarars is clear: dayeak relations protected the clan from domestic and foreign threats to its physical existence. Whether in times of warfare or of relative peace, the dayeak's influence over his ward was substantial. Sometimes motivated by kinship, altruism, and humanity, the fourth century Mamikoneans (and others) often appear to have used dayeakut'iwn to further their own clan's ambitions.

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Footnotes 12-34

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