Tuesday, November 29, 2022

The list of rulers and kings of Armenia Minor ( or Lesser Armenia ) by Aryak Movsisyan and Lianna Karapetyan.




 The list of rulers and kings of Armenia Minor ( or Lesser Armenia ) by Aryak Movsisyan and Lianna Karapetyan. The second map is from Hewsen according Wikipedia.

The list is incomplete. During the rule of Mithridates Eupator ( who had also the throne name Artashes ) the two neighbouring kingdoms of Pontus and Lesser Armenia merged in to one kingdom. A powerful kingdom formed which conquered quite large territories. Nevertheless Romans defeated Mithridates Eupator and after that Lesser Armenia became a client state of Rome who was nominating the rulers. At some point it was incorporated in to Roman empire and became a province.
The most interesting name in this list is the Oromanes. Movsisyan compares this name with the patriarch Aramanyak. The existence of this name can be an indirect evidence that the Armenian name Aram ( old version Aramu ) is derived from an early form of Urumu. And it's a name derived from a major tribe. Cuneiform Urumu was almost certainly pronounced as Oromo which by vowel reduction can become Aramo and Aram. The name Oromanes/Oromana can be another derivative from this root.
Another interesting thing to note is the initial geography of Pontic kingdom. It formed on the lands inhabited by Kashkians. So despite being a Hellenistic kingdom we can say that by ethnicity it formed on ancient Kashkian basis.
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