| Battle of Ani | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Armenian-Byzantine Wars | |||||||
 Armenians defeat Byzantine forces attacking Ani by Giuliano Zasso | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Kingdom of Armenia |  Byzantine Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Vahram Pahlavouni | Constantine IX | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 100,000 [2] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 2000 | 20,000 | ||||||
The Battle of Ani was fought between the forces of the Kingdom of Armenia under Vahram Pahlavouni and the Byzantine Empire in 1042. The Byzantine Empire was soundly defeated, with up to 100,000 dead. [3]
Vahram selected a body of 30,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry, forming three divisions, which fought against the Byzantines, numbering 100,000. [2] [1] A battle ensued in which the invaders were routed with great slaughter. The fight was so ferocious that the effusion of blood flowing into the Akhurian River is said to have coloured its waters completely red. [1]
The Byzantines were defeated. [1] This victory allowed Vahram Pahlavuni along with Catholicos Petros Getadarts to crown Gagik II king of Armenia and subsequently take the fortress of Ani, which had been in the hands of Vest Sarkis. [1]
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Byzantine Armenia, sometimes known as Western Armenia, is the name given to the parts of Kingdom of Armenia that became part of the Byzantine Empire. The size of the territory varied over time, depending on the degree of control the Byzantines had over Armenia.
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The Zakarids–Mkhargrdzeli, also Zakarids or Zakarians, also known by their Georgian name as Mkhargrdzeli (მხარგრძელი), were a noble Armenian–Georgian dynasty. Their name in Georgian, Mkhargrdzeli, or in Armenian: Երկայնաբազուկ, (Yerkaynbazuk) meant long-armed. A family legend says that this name was a reference to their Achaemenid ancestor Artaxerxes II the "Longarmed". According to Cyril Toumanoff / Encyclopædia Iranica, they were an offshoot of the Armenian Pahlavuni family. The Zakarians considered themselves Armenians.
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The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 572–591 was a war fought between the Sasanian Empire of Persia and the Byzantine Empire. It was triggered by pro-Byzantine revolts in areas of the Caucasus under Persian hegemony, although other events also contributed to its outbreak. The fighting was largely confined to the southern Caucasus and Mesopotamia, although it also extended into eastern Anatolia, Syria, and northern Iran. It was part of an intense sequence of wars between these two empires which occupied the majority of the 6th and early 7th centuries. It was also the last of the many wars between them to follow a pattern in which fighting was largely confined to frontier provinces and neither side achieved any lasting occupation of enemy territory beyond this border zone. It preceded a much more wide-ranging and dramatic final conflict in the early 7th century.
Bagratid Armenia was an independent Armenian state established by Ashot I Bagratuni of the Bagratuni dynasty in the early 880s following nearly two centuries of foreign domination of Greater Armenia under Arab Umayyad and Abbasid rule. With each of the two contemporary powers in the region—the Abbasids and Byzantines—too preoccupied to concentrate their forces in subjugating the region, and with the dissipation of several of the Armenian nakharar noble families, Ashot succeeded in asserting himself as the leading figure of a movement to dislodge the Arabs from Armenia.
The Bagratuni or Bagratid dynasty was an Armenian royal dynasty which ruled the medieval Kingdom of Armenia from c. 885 until 1045. Originating as vassals of the Kingdom of Armenia of antiquity, they rose to become the most prominent Armenian noble family during the period of Arab rule in Armenia, eventually establishing their own independent kingdom. Their domain included regions of Armenia such as Shirak, Bagrevand, Kogovit, Syunik, Lori, Vaspurakan, Vanand and Taron. Many historians, such as Cyril Toumanoff, Nicholas Adontz and Ronald Suny, consider them to be the progenitors of the Georgian royal Bagrationi dynasty.
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