|
|
FORMATION
OF ARMENIAN AND GEORGIAN NATIONS (excerpt from the
book ”The Making of the Georgian Nation”/Indianopolis/1994) Friedrich W. Putzgers / 1929 and Ronald Grigor Suny / 1994 |
||
|
|
Editorial Preface Although the book of a well-known expert on
the Caucasus is called “The Making of the Georgian Nation”, the history of
Georgia cannot be separated from that of Armenia. The below excerpt should
undoubtedly of interest to everyone who would like to learn more about the
early historical development of the two nations of the South Caucasus. Andrew Andersen, 2010 _________________________________________________________________________________________
The entire area of Transcaucasia and
eastern Anatolia was, in the period beginning in the last quarter of the
fourth millennium B.C., inhabited by people who were probably ethnically
related and of Hurrian stock. (The Hurrians, a people spread throughout the
Click on the map
for better resolution
Other tribes mentioned in the Assyrian
inscriptions may also have been proto-Georgian tribes, notably the Kashkai and the Tibal (the
biblical Thubal), who lived in eastern Tempting as this theoretical model of
Georgian social evolution may be, it must be remembered that there is little
available evidence to illuminate thesocial
structure of the tribal societies of this ancient period. It is known that
the proto-Georgian tribes (then centered in the Chorokhi
basin north of Erzerum) and the proto-Armenian
tribes (probably located to the south in th region
bordering the Murad-su) were not under a central,
unified political authority once the Cimmerians had swept throughout the
area. 20 The second half of the seventh century B.C.
marked the rise of significant political formations that can be identified
with proto-Georgian tribes. Some of these tribes, living in the upper reaches
of the Chorokhi River, were united under the
name sasperi.21 Based in the former territory of the Diauehi,
the Sasperi had much of southern Transcaucasia
under their sway bythe early sixth century and
participated in the destruction of the Urartian
empire, only to disintegrate under the expansionist thrusts of the Medes in
the east. The Sasperi
merged with the Urartians in their lands, and, Melikishvili conjectures, borrowed Urartian
words that found their way into the Georgian language.22 At approximately the same time, a
new “kingdom” of Colchis was formed in western Early in the sixth century, the Urartian empire fell to the Medes, Scythians, and Sasperi,
and the Median empire replaced it as the principal political power in
Click on the maps
for better resolution
In his descriptions of the military dress
of the “Asian" peoples, Herodotus mentions that the various
proto-Georgian tribes were similar in uniform and weaponry: The Moschi wore wooden helmets on their heads, and carried
shields and small spears with long points. The Tibareni
and Macrones and Mossynoeci
in the army were equipped like the Moschi ... The
Mares wore on their heads the plaited helmets of their country, carrying
small shields of hide and javelins. The Colchians
had wooden helmets and small shields of raw oxhide
and short spears, and swords withal.29 The Persian hold over these Georgian tribes
was fairly firm until the second half of the fifth century B.C. Georgians
marched in the Persian campaigns against the Greeks, and Persian terms in
Georgian political vocabulary are eloquent testimony to the depth of Iranian
influence in government. Not included in the empire as a satrapy, the
By the time Xenophon marched through Asia
Minor to the Black Sea (401-400 B.C.), the Colchians
and other Georgian tribes had freed themselves from Achaemenid
rule. As Xenophon and his thousands moved closer the sea, they came to a
mountain pass leading down into the coastal plain. Their path was blocked
there by peoples whom Xenophon called the Chalybes,
Taochi, and Phasians.32 The Greeks attacked the defenders of
the pass from above, strove them off, and then "descended into the plain
on the father army and reached villages full of many good things." Xenophon’s army proceeded deeper into the
country of the Taochi, who lived in strong
fortifications. The Greeks, in need of provisions, attacked one of the
fortresses were held off for a time by defenders hurling stones and boulders.
Once the fortress was taken, "then came a dreadful spectacle: the women
threw their little children down from the rocks and then threw themselves
down after, and the men did likewise.” 33 Without many prisoners but with great
numbers of oxen, asses, and sheep, Xenophon moved on through 150 miles of the
country of the Chalybes. These
were the most valiant of all the peoples they passed through, and would come
to hand-to-hand encounter. They had corselets of linen, reach¬ing
down to the groin, with a thick fringe of plaited cords instead of flaps.
They had greaves also and helmets, and at the girdle a knife about as long as
a Laconian dagger, with which they might be able to
vanquish; then they would cut off their [enemies'] heads and carry them along
their march, and they would sing and dance whenever they were likely to be
seen by the enemy. They carried also a spear about five cubits long, with a
point at only one end. These people would stay within their towns, and when
the Greeks had pushed by, they would follow them, always ready to fight.
Their dwellings were in strongholds, and therein they had stored away all
their provisions; hence the Greeks could get nothing in this country, but
they subsisted on the cattle they had taken horn the Taochians.34 After ravaging the country of the Colchians, Xenophon moved on to the west and entered the
land of the Mossynoeci, where the Greeks allied
themselves with one tribal alliance against another. Xenophon's report about
the peculiar activities of the upper class deserves to be mentioned: And
when the Greeks, as they proceeded, were among the friendly Mossynoecians, they would exhibit to them fattened
children of the wealthy inhabitants, whom they had nourished on boiled nuts
and were soft and white to an extraordinary degree, and pretty nearly equal
in length and breadth, with their backs adorned with many colours and their fore parts all tattooed with flower patterns. These Mossynoecians wanted also to have intercourse openly with
the women who accompanied the Greeks, for that was their own fashion. And all
of them were white, the men and the women alike. They were set down by the
Greeks who served through the expedition, as the most uncivilized people
whose country they traversed, the furthest removed from Greek customs. For
they habitually did in public the things that other people would do only in
private, and when they were alone they would behave just as if they were in
the company of others, talking to themselves, laughing at themselves, and
dancing in whatever spot they chanced to be, as though they were giving an
exhibition to others.35 From Xenophon's Anabasis it is possible to
piece together a picture of the western Georgian tribes at the end of the
fifth century B.C. Free from IVrsian authority
(except for the Mossynoeci),
they lived in hostile relations with the Greek merchant ports. The various
tribal alliances fought with one another, and therefore their lands were
covered with fortified settlements. There were no major towns in the area
and, in the words of Melikishvili, people “lived in conditions characteristic of the
political fragmentation of a primitive communal society, in which separate
tribal formations warred constantly with one another."36
In the first half of the fourth century
B.C., the Persians may have to reassert their suzerainty over the western Georgian
tribes, for it is known that the Greek cities of Sinope
and Amis came under their authority. But the Achaemenid
hold over the western satraps was tenuous, and during the reign of Artaxerxes II (405—359 B.C.) several provincial
subordinates, including Orontes of Armenia and Datam
of Cappadocia, revolted against Persian authority.37 With the campaigns of
Alexander the Great and his decisive victory over the Persians at Arbela
(Gaugamela) in 331 B.C., Persian power collapsed in Asia Minor. The Greek expansion
not only drove back the ftrsians but introduced a
new cultural and political hegemony over eastern Anatolia. The dominance of
Persian and Mesopotamian political culture was both inhibited and
complemented by the Greek in a new Hellenistic syn¬thesis,
though the influence of Iranian culture remained strong in Georgia and
Armenia. Through the two centuries of Achaemenid dominion over eastern Anatolia and
Transcaucasia (546—331 B.C.), several proto-Georgian tribes had migrated
north from Anatolia into the Pontic regions along
the Black Sea coast, where Xenophon found them, and to the east into the Kura
valley. The Tibal and Mushki
had moved into eastern Georgia, where they merged with local tribes to form
the Georgian people. To the Greeks they were known as Iberoi
(Iberians), a name that Melikishvili believes came
from the land from which they had migrated, Speri.
D. M. Lang mentions the hypothesis that the toot Tibar
in Hbareni (Hbal) gave
rise to the form Iber
from which the Greeks derived their name for the eastern Georgians. From the Mushki (Meskhi, Moskhi) came the name of the chief city of ancient
Iberia, Mtskheta. Even more important, the Mushki brought with them from the west the pantheon of
Hittite gods, headed by Armazi, the moon god, and Zaden, the god of fruitfulness.38 With the elimination of Achaemenid
authority the eastern Georgian tribes might have fallen under Macedonian
rule, but early in the third century B.C. the ruling dynast of Armazi-Mtskheta in eastern Georgia established his
primacy over the other Iberian princes. The Georgian chronicles, Kartlis Tskhovreba,
provide the tradition of the first king of Kartli-lberia,
Parnavazi (Farnavazi, Pharnabazus), who, they claim, was a descendant of Kartlosi, the eponymous ancestor of the Georgians. The
chronicles state that Parnavazi united Georgians of
the east with those of Colchis-Fgrisi to drive the
"Greeks" from Mtskheta. The overthrow of Azon, founder of the Mtskheta
state, and the expulsion of the Macedonians left Parnavazi
the most powerful ruler in Transcaucasia, and he soon brought western Georgia
under his rule. The hegemony of Kartli-Iberia over
Colchis-Egrisi meant that the Georgian tribes
consolidated around eastern Georgia. Although an older state than Kartli, Egrisi's independence
did not prove as durable, and it was successively ruled by Achaemenid Persia, Hellenistic Pontus, Rome, and
Byzantium. Parnavazi's new state, on the other
hand, soon demonstrated an enviable independence and energy. Kartli not only expanded into western Georgia (with the
exception of its northern mountainous regions), but held Zemo
Kartli (Mtskheta), Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli, and Kakheti.40 Parnavazi maintained friendly relations with the heirs of
Alexander the Great, and his successors continued this policy and paid
tribute to the rulers of the Seleucid empire. Toumanoff
suggests that once Seleucid overlordship had been
established in Armenia it may have been necessary for the Seleucids to set up
a vassal state in Kartli-Iberia to provide pressure
on Armenia from the north. In his view, Parnavazi,
whose reign he estimates at 299 to 234 B.C., probably operated as such a
Seleucid vassal.41
Click on the maps
for better resolution
Click on the maps
for better resolution
Parnavazi is credited by the
Georgian chronicles with introducing a military-administrative organization
into his kingdom that both Soviet scholars and W. E. D. Allen see as the
beginnings of a feudal system.42 The king appointed a military governor (eristavi) to
each of the seven major provinces (Argveti, Kakheti, Gardabani, Tashir-Abotsi, Javakheti-Kolas-Artani, Samtskhe-Ajara, and Kvarjeti) while keeping the central district of Shida Kartli under the
administration of his highest official, the spaspeti. Western Georgia was
not made into a saeristavo
(province) but was a vassal state ruled by Kuji,
the man who had aided Parnavazi against the
so-called Greeks. The political patterns adopted by the Iberian state were
those of its powerful neighbor, Persia, and the
term used for a local administrator, pitiaskhshi, was borrowed directly from Persian.43 Toumanoff sees the new administration as an attempt to
impose royal power over the still quite independent tribal leaders. "To
ensure its control of the dynastic aristocracy of the sep'ecul-s or mt'avar-s ('royal children,' 'princes'), the
youthful Crown instituted the feudal order of the erist'av-s ('dukes') . . . This
was not so much a supersedure of the princes, who
remained too powerful for that, as the conversion of the more important among
them into officers of the State entrusted with the control of others. In this
way, the Crown, which was to claim the fulness of
sovereignty for itself alone, was able gradually to deprive of it the lesser
princes, sharing it, under the guise of delegation, with only a few among
them."44 Georgia's economy was based on free peasant
agriculturalists, though there was apparently some slaveholding. At the top
of society stood the royal family, the military nobility, and the pagan
priesthood. But the formation of the cast Georgian state not only laid the
foundation of Georgian social hierarchy but also in its initial stages
encouraged the consolidation of separate tribes into a larger ethnic
conglomerate. Barriers between tribes writ- eliminated as a consequence of
the political organization established by the Kartveli.
"Standing at the head of a powerful state formation, the Kartveli bewail to assimilate the other tribes who
entered into the makeup of the state of Kartli."45 With the conquest of Persia by Alexander
the Great, a "new epoch of lively commercial and industrial
activity" began in Asia Minor. Whereas in the exclusively agricultural
economy of Achaemenid times the peoples of
Transcaucasia had not been familiar with monetary transactions, at least not
until the end of the age, in the Seleucid period money was widely introduced
into commercial dealings. Alexandrine drachmas and tetradrachmas
were used in western Georgia and Armenia, though not in eastern Georgia, and
gold staters of Alexander were used in all three
regions. The economic advance of the Hellenistic period was especially keenly
felt by the Greek cities of the Black Sea coast. The world trade route from
India ran through Media and the Ararat plain to Colchis.46 This western
Georgian state was federated to Kartli-Iberia, and
its kings ruled through skeptukhi (royal governors) who received a staff from the
king. But Iberian power over western Georgia had waned by the late second
century B.C., and Colchis-Egrisi proved an easy
target for the vigorous ruler of Pontus, Mithradates
VI Eupator (111—63 B.C.). Western Georgia thus
passed out of the Persian and Iberian spheres of influence into the
Greco-Roman culture of the classical cities of the Black Sea littoral. A new political force entered Asia Minor
late in the second century B.C. and changed the balance of forces in eastern Anatolia.
In 190 B.C. Roman legions defeated Antiochus III (222-186 B.C.), the Seleucid
king of Persia, at the Battle of Magnesia. The weakened Persians were unable
to offer opposition when the Armenian kings, Artashes
(Artaxias; 189-161 B.C.) of Greater Armenia and Zareh (Zariadres) of Sophene, declared their autonomy from the Seleucid
empire. Artashes, founder of an Armenian empire,
pushed his border out in a vain attempt to take Sophene.
He did succeed in incorporating the southern Georgian regions of Gogarene, Chorzene, and Paryadres. His empire reached the Kura in the north and
the Caspian Sea in the east. The Iberian king, Parnajom,
fought the Armenians but was killed in battle. His throne was taken by Arshak, son of Artashes, and
the Armenian hegemony over eastern Georgia and the trade routes to Colchis
lasted well into the first century B.C.47
Click on the map
for better resolution In commercial and cultural contact with
Colchis and Pontus, Greater Armenia benefited from the Hellenistic currents
from the west. Armenia achieved her greatest expanse in the mid-first century
B.C. under the warrior-king Tigran II, "the
Great" (95-55 B.C.). In alliance with his father-in-law, Mithradates Eupator of Pontus, Tigran fought the Romans and Persians and conquered Sophene. Disaster befell Armenia when Rome sent Pompey to
bring Transcaucasia into submission. In 66 B.C. Tigran
was forced to make peace, and Pompey turned north to deal with the Georgians,
who had allied themselves with the Armenians. Pompey marched first into
Colchis, where he was attacked in the rear by Iberians and Caucasian
Albanians. In the spring of 65 B.C., he entered Iberia to fight King Artog (Arloces). Plutarch
reports that Pompey subdued the Iberians "in a great battle, in which
nine thousand of them were slain and more than ten thousand taken
prisoner."48 As a result of Pompey's expedition, Kartli-lberia,
Armenia, and Caucasian Albania became dependent states of Koine,
and Colchis-Egrisi) was integrated directly into
the empire as part of the province of Pontus.49 As Toumanoff
puts it, "In the years 66-64 B.C., the whole of Caucasia entered the
orbit of the nascent pax romana."50
Click on the map
for better resolution Roman power was never very firm in eastern
Georgia, and by the second half of the first century B.C. the growing strength
of the Parthian successors to the Persian Seleucids
was being felt throughout Transcaucasia. For three centuries Romans and Parthians fought over the Armenian and Georgian lands
that stood between their rival empires, and the Transcaucasian
peoples alternatively sided with one or the other power to maintain their
autonomy or to benefit from association with a powerful neighbor.
A pattern of Anatolian and Caucasian political maneuvering
developed by which the lesser local rulers shifted allegiances, not on the
basis of ethnicity or religion, but in desperate attempts to maintain local
power in the face of constant threats from larger states. Security could be
achieved only temporarily and only in alliance with one of the dominant
powers. Rather than an undiluted and consistent struggle for national
independence or religious integrity, as is often proposed by modern
historians, the struggles of the Armenian, Georgian, and Albanian kings and
princes should be seen as a series of constantly changing political
orientations. In a treacherous and precarious situation, their lodestar was
survival. Often this meant that princes gravitated toward one great power
while their monarchs moved toward another.
Roman legionnaire
(left) and Parthian warrior (right) Gradually, in the second half of the first
century B.C., Kartli-Iberia and Albania detached
themselves from Roman dominion. When Marc Antony campaigned against Parthia
in 36 B.C., neither Iberians nor Albanians joined him. Indeed, in the years
37 and 36 B.C., revolts against Roman authority broke out, first in Albania,
then in Kartli-Iberia. The Roman legions under Publius Canidius Crassus
entered Georgia to put down the revolt, but Crassus's campaign proved to be
the last Roman effort to subdue Georgia. By the last decade of the first
century B.C., Kartli-Iberia and Albania were
completely free from Rome. The Emperor Augustus recognized Iberia as an ally
and lifted Roman taxes from the region. In contrast, Armenia remained a bone
of contention between Parthia and Rome into the first century A.D., and as a
result Kartli-Iberia emerged as a more powerful
state and partook of the spoils to be had in divided and conquered Armenia.
In A.D. 35 Parsman I (Farsman,
Pharasmanes) of Iberia, an ally of the Romans,
defeated the Parthian king of Armenia and placed
his brother Mithradates (A.D. 35-51) on the throne.
In A.D. 51 Parsman's son, Rhadamistes,
defeated his uncle Mithridates at Garni and briefly became king of Armenia, only to be
executed by his father. Armenia was taken by the Parthians,
who gave the crown to Trdat, the founder of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty in
Armenia. Iberia and Rome fought Parthia and Armenia until the Peace of Rhandeia (A.D. 63), when Roman suzerainty over Armenia
was recognized by the Parthians in exchange for
Roman acceptance of the Arsacid king, Trdat (Tiridates). The terms of
the peace destroyed Iberia’s chances for aggrandizement at the expense of
Armenia, at least in alliance with Rome, and probably influenced Mihrdat (Mithradates) of
Iberia, Parsman's son, to ally himself with the
fierce Alans, nomads from the north, with whom he
campaigned several times into Armenia.51
Click on the map
for the full image With the vital issues of security and
legitimacy in the balance, the struggle for control of the Iberian and Armenian
territories led to almost constant warfare in the first three centuries A.D.
between Rome and Parthia, Armenia and Kartli. Toumanoff illuminates the causes of the Roman-Iranian
rivalry over Caucasia: Juridically,
there was the fact that Caucasia had been part of the Achaemenid
empire and that, on the other hand, it had subsequently accepted the
suzerainty of Rome. Practically, there was the fact that it was necessary to
both. Caucasia formed a great natural fortress between the two empires from
which each of the rivals could control the delicate frontier-line that lay
between them in the south. From it each could strike at the other's sensitive
points, Ctesiphon, the "Roman Lake," later, Constantinople.52 While Colchis was administered as a Roman province,
eastern Georgia generally accepted imperial protection. A stone inscription
discovered at Mtskheta speaks of the first-century
ruler, Mihrdat I (A.D. 58—106), as "the friend
of the Caesars" and the king "of the Roman-loving Iberians."53
Moreover, Emperor Vespasian fortified Armazi for
the Iberian king in the year 75. Rome seemed content for the most part to
recognize Kartli-Iberia and Armenia as client
states.54 Once the Arsacids
had firmly established their hold on the Armenian throne in the second
century A.D., they extended their rule to Kartli-Iberia.
Rev I (martali,
"the Just"; 189-216), overthrew his wife's brother, Amazaspus II, last of the Pharnabazids.
But even as Arsacids triumphed in l lie Caucasian
kingdoms, that dynasty fell from power in its original homeland, Persia, when
the dynamic Ardashir overthrew the Parthian dynasty and founded the four-hundred-year empire
of the Sassanids (224—651). Led by their
warrior-kings, the Sassanids forced Armenia to
succumb to their authority, drove back the Romans, captured Emperor Valerian,
and invaded pro-Roman Kartli-Iberia and Albania.55 Shapur I (242—272) placed a vassal, Amasaspus
III (260-265), on the throne of Kartli-Iberia,
possibly a rival or antiking of Mihrdat
II. The Romans regained Caucasia briefly under
Emperor Aurelian (270-275) and again when Carus
defeated Iran in 283. The Arsacid line in Kartli-Iberia ended the next year, and the Iranians took
advantage of internal strife In the Roman empire to establish their
candidate, Mirian III (Meribanes,
284-361), son of the Great King of Iran, on the throne of eastern Georgia.56
In l^H, after a great Roman victory, Iran and Rome
signed the Peace of Nisibis, and Mirian was recognized as king, though suzerain rights
over Hiiiih-lhcria and Armenia passed to the
Romans. Albania came under Iranian control. With King Mirian
the classical period of Georgian history came to an end, for this monarch was
the first of his line to adopt Christianity. The Greek geographer, Strabo, writing in
the first century A.D., permits us to penetrate the military-political veneer
of ancient Caucasian history to examine the structure of Colchian
and Iberian society. Of the lands around Phasis in
Colchis, Strabo writes: The
country is excellent both in respect to its produce—except its honey, which
is generally bitter—and in respect to everything that pertains to
ship-building; for it not only produces quantities of timber but also brings
it down on rivers. And the people make linen in quantities, and hemp, wax,
and pitch. Their linen industry has been famed far and wide; for they used to
export linen to outside places.57 It is clear that by Strabo's time the
period of greatness and prosperity associated with Mithradates
Eupator had passed. Some of the tribes near the Hellenistic
ports were living in squalor and filth—one received the name phtheirophagi
("lice-eaters")—but others reportedly used fleecy skins to pan .for
gold in the mountain streams (perhaps, as Strabo suggests, the origin of the
myth of the golden fleece).58 Turning to Iberia, Strabo is full of praise
for the country ("fruitful," "exceedingly good pasture"),
its towns ("their roofs are tiled, and their houses as well as their
market-places and other public buildings are constructed with architectural
skill"), and the people. "The plain of the Iberians is inhabited by
people who are rather inclined to farming and to
peace, and they dress after both the Armenian and the Median fashion; but the
major, or warlike, portion occupy the mountainous territory, living like the
Scythians and the Sarmatians, of whom they are both
neighbors and kinsmen; however, they engage also in
farming." Most revealing of all in Strabo's account of eastern Georgian
society is his brief description of its four strata: There
are . . . four castes among the inhabitants of Iberia. One, and the first of
all, is that from which they appoint their kings, the appointee being both
the nearest of kin to his predecessor and the eldest, whereas the second in
line administers justice and commands the army. The second caste is that of
the priests, who among other things attend to all matters of controversy with
the neighboring peoples. The third is that of the
soldiers and the farmers. And the fourth is that of the common people, who
arc slaves of the king and perform all the services that pertain to human
livelihood. Their possessions are held in common by them according to
families, although the eldest is ruler and steward of each estate.59 Using Strabo and later Georgian and
Armenian sources, scholars have developed a picture of Georgian society in
classical time*. Al the top, according to Toumanoff,
stood "the dynastic aristocracy of Iberia," which included the
royal family (sepe)
as well as the supreme judge of the land and the commander in chief of the
army. Immediately below the aristocracy was the pagan priesthood, which
played a diplomatic and probably a judicial role but disappeared with the
conversion of Kartli-Iberia to Christianity in the
early fourth century. The third class was made up of free agriculturalists
and soldiers, the class that in time became the Georgian nobility or
aznaureba.60 Akin to the Armenian azat class, these small landholders and warriors survived,
along with the dynastic aristocracy, well into the twelfth century. The
freemen, who lived in territorial communes and held their land as
individuals, provided military service and were later known in Georgian as eri. For a long time this term meant both
"people" and "armed force."61 The lowest stratum of society was, in
Strabo's terms, laoi,
semidependent agriculturalists who lived in tribal
communes and held their land in common. Both Toumanoff
and Melikishvili contend that these people were not
slaves in the full juridical sense of that word. They were not the chattel or
property of their overlords but were obliged to pay dues in cash and kind and
to provide the muscle required by the primitive agrarian economy. They were
the glekhni,
the peasants. Toumanoff asserts that "the
rural peasantry, obviously the largest group in Iberian society, had, exactly
as in Armenia, come by this time to depend on great landed proprietors, as
tenants or coloni,
and had started on the way towards serfdom." Strabo does not mention
artisans, merchants, or real slaves, and it may be that these groups,
particularly the latter two, were largely comprised of foreigners.62 Although there was some trade between Kartli-Iberia and neighboring
countries, the major transit route of Roman times "ran from Southern Russia
it long the eastern shore of the Black Sea through Colchis and Artaxata-Artasat to Media and thence to the East."63
The Soviet economic historian, Manandian, does not
consider Kartli-Iberia to have been very
significant in the transit trade of the first centuries A.D., but Melikishvili takes issue with (his view, contending that Manandian underestimates the importance of kartli in classical trade. Since this was a period of
difficulty for Armenia, which was caught between Rome and Parthia, Kartli-Iberia found itself freer
to take advantage of transit commerce and developed an interest in trade that
probably motivated efforts to control the routes to the south, across
Armenia. In Kartli the major trading artery was the
Kura, and it is noteworthy that the military-administrative center of eastern
Georgia, Mtskheta, was situated at t he confluence
of the Kura and the Aragvi. Other towns—Kaspi, Uplistsikhe, Irbnisi, Odzrakhe, and Nekresi—were also foci for artisans and merchants (vachari), as
well as governmental officials and the military.64 The first centuries A.D. were the period in
which the distinctive features of Caucasian society were molded.
Caught between the Roman and Persian worlds, Armenia and Kartli-Iberia
were clearly influenced culturally by both, hut in the formation of their
societies Persian norms played the dominant role.65 Nicholas Adontz points out the differences from the development of
the West, where the state rose from urban settlements to city-states to
empires (which in many ways were city-states writ large). In the East,
"family relations remained the basic generative principle of political
life."66 Originally a tribal confederation, the Persian empire had
evolved by Parthian times into a class society,
though one that remained characterized by tribal underpinnings. The Arsacids were kings of kings, rulers of other
semiautonomous rulers who paid tribute and gave military service to their
overlords.
While Adontz
refers to the Arsacid period in Armenia as
"feudal," Toumanoff makes an important
distinction between "feudalism" and what he calls "dynasticism." Disagreeing with Adontz
that the Caucasian social structure was essentially the same as that of
Western feudalism, Toumanoff argues that in the
Armenian nakharar
system the princes held their lands absolutely and had much greater local
power than did West European nobles, whose tenure was conditional and based
on service. Caucasian society was at first dynastic and only later did it
approach feudal forms. Toumanoff's dynasticism is marked by princely independence, allodial land tenure, and the primacy of the tribe rather
than the state. In Armenia under the Artaxiad
dynasty, feudal forms were introduced into a basically dynastic sociopolitical structure. Local princes, whose
landholdings existed before their loyalty to the king, became bound to the
monarch by ties of political subordination. "As in Artaxiad
Armenia, no doubt under the same imperial influences and probably
simultaneously with it, Iberia now evolved that symbiosis of the feudalistic
and the dynastic regime which characterizes Caucasian so-ciety.
The king of Iberia stood at the summit of the two orders, dynasticist
and feudal, both as the superdynast and as the
theoretical sole source of sovereignty." Toumanoff
goes on to explain that "the feudal aspect of the princely class
stemmed, in Armenia as in Iberia, from the attempt of the High Kings to
involve the dynasts in the service mechanism of the monarchy."67 A
mixture of dynasticism and feudalism emerged in
eastern Georgia. Whereas in Armenia the dynastic aspects proved
indestructible and prevented the kings from ever fully subordinating the nakharars
(princes), in Kartli-Iberia monarchical power was
exercised more completely and feudal ties were more secure. The Iberian kings
were more fortunate than those in Armenia in welding their nobility into a
system of service to the monarch, and Iberian monarchs were able at times to
unite with their petty nobles against the power of the great princes,
something the Armenian kings were unable to do.
Map by R.G. Suny The king (mepe) of Kartli-Iberia
appointed the spaspeti
(erismtavari),
or high constable, to whom all provincial and local officials were
subordinated. This office, in contrast to its Armenian counterpart, was not
hereditary in one family, though it was usually occupied by a member of the
first class, the dynastic aristocracy. The king also recruited some nobles to
serve as his royal officer* at court (ezoismodzqvari) or in the province* to keep the other
nobles in line. In each province an eristavi or pitiaskhshi governed (the two terms were
interchangeable).68 Most of them came from the highest class. Below the
provincial governors were the spasalarni (generals) and the khliarkhni (atasistavni), who collected
taxes and gathered troops. A few eristavni came from the aznaureba or nobility, a class
that evolved in time from the third class, the free agriculturalists. As
warfare increasingly became a matter for mounted warriors (tskhentartsani)
rather than common foot soldiers (mkvirtskhlebi), military estates were required to support
these cavalrymen. The aznaumi thus became
distinguished from the tsvrilieri
or "petty people." Already by the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.,
the aznaumi
of Kartli-Iberia were becoming a separate social
group and were clearly superior to the tadzdreulni, the free
agriculturists who held allotments on royal lands and served in the king's
army.69 In its most permanent sociopolitical
forms, Georgia was a reflection of Iranian organization rather than Roman.
The king of Kartli-Iberia was a hereditary monarch,
like the Iranian Great King, not an elected or appointed ruler as in the
Roman tradition. Kartli early developed a privileged and hereditary nobility based on the land,
just as her neighbor to the east, Iran, had done.
In Rome-Byzantium the "ruling class" was an imperial officialdom,
nonhereditary and largely the creature of the emperor. As Toumanoff
sums up: "Socially the Caucasian polities were similar to the Iranian
and utterly unlike the Romano-Byzantine. Armenia and Iberia were even more
aristocratic in character than Iran, being, in fact, federations of dynastic
princes—each the overlord of a body of lesser nobility—presided over by
kings."70 Yet at the end of the classical period the conversion of
Georgia and Armenia to Christianity committed these states to an orientation
toward the Romans. Socially akin to the East, Christian Caucasia filtered the
medieval period with a new cultural and religious allegiance to the West.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes 9.
Burney and Lang, Peoples of the Hills,
pp. 43-85; and J. Mellaart, "Anatolia, c.
4000-2300 B.C.,"
23. Burney and Lang, Peoples of the Hills, pp. 193-94.
46. Ia. A. Manandian,
O torgovle i gorodakh Armenii
v sviazi s mirovoi torgovlei drevnikh vremen (Erevan, 1945). References are to the English
translation by Nina Garsoian: H. A. Manandian, The
Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade (Lisbon,
1965), pp. 29, 38-39. 47. Ibid., pp. 50—52; on Artaxias's origins in Media, and Iranian influences on
Armenia, see Anahit Perikhanian,
"Une inscription arameenne
du roi Artases trouvee a Zangezour (Siwnik)," Revue
des etudes armeniennes, n.s.,
3 (1966): 17—29, and "Les Inscriptions arameennes
du roi Artaches (A propos
d'une recente trouvaille epigraphique en Armenie)," ibid., n.s., 8
(1971): 169-74. 48. Bernadotte Perrin, trans., Plutarch's Lives, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library
(New York, 1917), p. 207. 49. Some Western scholars, like D. Magie, argue that the Romans aimed at con¬trolling
the northern Transcaucasian transit trade route
(Kura-Phasis), but Manan¬dian
and other Soviet scholars believe that the northern route was much less
important than the southern, which ran through Artaxata
in Armenia (Manandian, Trade and Cities, pp.
48-49). 50. Toumanoff, Studies, p. 83. 51. Melikishvili,
K istorii drevnei Gruzii, pp. 337,
344—45; and Berdzenishvili et al., Istoriia Gruzii, p. 61. 52. Cyril Toumanoffj
"Caucasia and Byzantium," Traditio 27 (1971): 114. Con¬trol
over the Caucasus meant control over the northern passes through which
raiders from the steppe could move down into Iran or the eastern Roman
holdings. 53. Allen, History of the Georgian People, p. 75. 54. The ambivalence of Roman-Iberian
relations is well illustrated in what we know of the reign of the most
celebrated of the east Georgian monarchs of the second century A.D., Parsman II (called kveli, the
"good" or "valiant"), who ruled from 116 to 132. Parsman was a friend of the Emperor Hadrian, who honored him with the gift of an elephant. The Georgian
monarch sent gold-embroidered cloaks in return. In 129, however, Parsman refused to pay homage to Hadrian on the occasion
of the emperor's visit to the East. Tensions with Rome prompted Kartli-Iberia to ally with the Alans
and campaign against the great empires to the south (Toumanoffj
"Chronology of the Kings of Iberia," p. 16; Melikishvili,
K istorii drevnei Gruzii, pp. 353-
62). Half a century later, Parsman III (135-185)
was the guest of Emperor Antonius Pius and was honored
by being permitted to make offerings in the Capitol. His equestrian statue
was erected in the Temple of Bellona, and the territory of Iberia was
increased (Toumanoff, "Chronology of the Kings
of Iberia," p. 17). 55. Ibid., p. 18. On the Sassanids, see A. Christensen, Iran sous les Sassanides
(Copenhagen, 1944). 56. Toumanoffj
"Chronology of the Kings of Iberia," pp. 21-22. 57. Jones, Geography of Strabo, p. 211. 58. Ibid., p. 215. 59. Ibid., pp. 217-21. 60. Toumanoff,
"Introduction to Christian Caucasian History: The Formative
Centuries," pp. 43, 45, and Studies,
pp. 91, 93-94. 61. Melikishvili,
K istorii drevnei Gruzii, p. 315; and
Berdzenishvili et al., Istoriia
Gruzii, p. 68. The coincidence of identical terms
far "people" and "armed force" was widespread in the
early societies; c£ the Indo-European languages: the German Volk and the Slavic polk. 62. Toumanoff,
Studies, pp. 94—95; and Melikishvili, K istorii drevnei Gruzii, pp. 312-13. 63. Manandian, Trade and Cities, p. 73. 64. Melikishvili,
K istorii drevnei Gruzii, 439-40,
443-44. Vajari
is an Iranian loanword from the Persian vazar (bazaar). 65. For a penetrating study of the Iranian
influence in ancient Armenia, see Nina Garsoian,
"Prolegomena to a Study of the Iranian Aspects in Arsacid
Armenia," Handes Amsorya 90
(1976): 177-234. 66. N. Adontz, Armenia in the Period of Justinian: The
Political Conditions Based on the Naxarar System
(Louvain-Lisbon, 1970), p. 291. This is a translation by Nina Garsoian of Adontz's classic Armeniia v epokhu lustiniana: Politicheskoe sostoianie na osnove nakhararskogo stroia (St. Petersburg, 1908). 67. Toumanoff,
"Introduction to Christian Caucasian History: The Formative
Centuries," pp. 50, 62. 68. Georges Charachidze,
Introduction a
I'etude de la fiodalite georgienne (Le Code de Georges le Brillant)
(Paris, 1971), p. 97. 69. Toumanoff, Studies, pp. 96-98; and Melikishvili, K istorii drevnei Gruzii, pp. 67-68,
474-75. 70. Toumanoff,
"Christian Caucasia Between Byzantium and Iran: New Light from Old
Sources," Traditio
10 (1954): 123-24. |
|
|
