The great plateau of Annenia, rising to a height of from 6000 to 7000 feet above the sea, was naturally a district which appeared to the dwellers in the southern plains beyond the reach of the Deluge. Intensely cold in the winter, it is equally hot in the summer. The vine is indigenous there (as it is in the Balkans), and the whole district is marked by the results of volcanic action. It is note- worthy that the present Armenian words for 'gold' and ' tin ' are identical with the Sumerian or proto- Cliahhcan names of the same objects (ushi, ' gold,' Sumerian, guski, wuski ; anag, ' tin,' Sum. nagga).
The cuneiform characters of Assyria were intro- duced into the kiriirdom of Ararat in the 9tli cent. B.C. The syllabary was greatly simplified, each character having only a single phonetic value attached to it, and the greater number of charac- ters expressing closed syllables being rejected. The vowels were usually denoted by separate characters, and a good many ideographs were borrowed. It is to the use of these ideo^aphs that the decipherment of the Vannic inscriptions is mainly due. The inscriptions are carved on rocks, altar-stones, colunms, and the like, and are in a language which shows little resemblance to any other with which we are acquainted, though it may be distantly related to modern Georgian.
The introduction of the cuneiform syllabary was partly the result of the campaigns of the Assyr. kings Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser II. in tlie north, and it seems to have been connected with the rise of a new dynasty which established itself on the shores of Lake Van (about B.C. 840). The founder of the dynasty was Sar-duris I. the son of Lutipris, who appears to have displaced Arame, the earlier antagonist of Shalmaneser II. Sar-duris was suc- ceeded by his son Ispuinis ('the settler'), who, towards the end of his reign, associated his son Menuas with him on the throne. Menuas was a great conqueror and builder ; he carried his anns as far as Mount Rowandiz in the east, and beyond the Araxes in the north, and he also claims to have defeated the Hittites and the king of Mala- tiyeh in the west. An inscription commemorative of the event was engraved on the cliff overhangiii" the Euphrates near Palu. Menuas was followed by his son Argistis I. , who has recorded in a long inscription on the rock of Van the campaigns he made year by year, and the amount of spoil he brought back from them. The kingdoms of the Minni and other nations in the neighbourhood of Lake Urumiyeh were ravaged, and the Assyr. forces are stated to have been overthrown. Siir- duris II., the son of Argistis, continued the con-
?[uests of his father, and extended his empire as ar as the borders of Cappadocia. But his career was suddenly checked by the revival of Assyria under Tiglath-pileser III. The northern league, which the king of Armenia formed a^iainst the new power, was shattered, and the Assyrians swept the country up to the gates of the capital, Dhuspas or Van. Rusas I. , the son and successor of Sar-duris, was equally unfortunate in his attempt to check the progress of Assyria, and after the overthrow of his allies by Sargon, and the fall of the city of Muzazir, he Killed himself in a fit of despair. His successor, Argistis II., however, managed to pre- serve his independence, as also did Erimenas, against whom Esarhaddon was carrying on war, wlien Sennacherib was murdered by his two sons. It was to the court of Erimenas that the murderers fled. His son Rusas II. improved the water-supply of Van, and built a palace, on the site of wiiicli various objects of Vannic art, such as ornamental shields and man - headed bulls of bronze, hare been discovered. A few years later Sar-duris II. made alliance with the Assyr. king, Assur-bani-
fial (B.C. 645). Ararat suffered soon afterwards, ike the rest of W. Asia, from the invasion of the Kimmerians and Scj'ths, in the wake of which it Ls probable came the immigration of the Ar^-an Armenians, and the fall of the old kingdom of Ararat. According to the classical authors, these Aryan Armenians were a Phrygian colony (Herod, vii, 73; Eustath. on Dion. v. 694). The conquest of AJmenia by Cyrus took place in B.C. 546.
LiTKRATrRK. — Savcc, 'The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Vrnn, In the JRAS xiT. 8, 4, xx. 1, XIV 1 (18U3), xitvi. 4 (1894).
A. n. Sayce.
AKATHES
ARCH
141
ARATHES ( Apiapidris, x, AV Ariarathes; 'kp6.0ri%, A, cursives, incorrectlj', 1 Mac 15--), v. Philcpatok, formerly called Mithndates, was king of Canpadocia B.C. 1G3-130. He was a firm ally of the llomans, and, in accordance with their wi.shes, rejected the proposal of a marriage with the sister of Demetrius Soter. The latter made war upon him, and expelled him from his kingdom, setting up in his stead Holo- phemes, a supposititious son of A. IV. Philopator Bed to Rome about B.C. 158, and by Rom. aid he was restored to a share in the government. A few years later he again became sole king. In B.C. 139, ID consequence of an embassy sent by Simon Mac- cabieus, the Romans wrote letters to A. and certain other eastern sovereigns in favour of the Jews (1 Mac I.e.). See Diodor. xxxi. 19. 28. 32; Justin XXXV. 1 ; Polyb. iii 6, xxxii. 20. 23, xxxiii. 12 ; Appian. Syr. 47. H. A. WHITE.