The Kingdom of the Seleucids
After the death of Alexander the Great in the year 324 B.C., his commanders divided his empire among themselves. Antigones took Macedonia and Ptolemius chose to take Egypt. The third commander, Seleukos, took Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor. Since Armenia was an administrative part of Persia, it stood to reason that Armenia should also be included in the kingdom of Seleukos. But Armenia had already become independent, as we already have mentioned.
The successors of Seleukos tried in vain, during the 3rd century B.C., to conquer Armenia, but the country managed to defend itself successfully. After some territorial losses, the Seleucid kingdom was reduced to present-day Syria. At that time, around 222 B.C., the power-hungry Antiochos III came to power. He began a policy of expansion and managed finally to conquer Armenia. He divided Armenia into two parts: Armenia Major (greater Armenia), east of the Euphrates River, and Armenia Minor (lesser Armenia), west of the Euphrates and appointed a satrap for each part. The satraps he had chosen among the Armenian princes were Artashes (Artaxias) in Armenia Major and Zareh (Zariadrés) in Armenia Minor. The latter was a descendent of King Yervand, the first Armenian king.
But Antiochos III was not content with Armenia and turned his eyes towards Judea (Palestine) which he eventually conquered.. After a failed attempt at attacking Egypt, he expanded his borders to include all of Asia Minor.
Rome, which had just won its battle over Carthage, looked on the growing power of Antiochos III with concern. When Antiochos III conquered Asia Minor, the Romans could no longer just sit around and watch the "entrance" to their empire fall into the hands of a rival.. They attacked Antiochos III who suffered a heavy defeat. The losses were so great that the whole of his fast-growing empire was shattered and he was forced to content himself with the region that he had held in the beginning, i.e. Syria.
Armenia regains its Independence
After the collapse of the kingdom of Antiochos III, two separate Armenian kingdoms, Armenia Major and Armenia Minor, declared their independence. In Armenia Major, which included the present-day Erzurum, Moush, Van and Yerevan, King Artashes I declared himself as king in the year 190 B.C., while king Zareh founded the other kingdom.
I It seems that the creation of an independent Armenia, or actually two independent Armenias, happened because of an opening provided by Rome. 43 Ferrero wrote: "It was just at this moment that Rome began to follow a policy of weakening the major powers in the Middle East by political and military intervention and so create hostility between them." 43 Rome, afraid that the Syrian kingdom of the Seleucids would regain its former strength, saw the advantage of having an independent Armenia to counterbalance the Selucids.
Thus, as Cicero, Antiochos was after his defeat ordered by Romans to limit his kingdom to the north of the Taurus Mountains, which in its turn made the creation of an independent Armenia possible.
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