Երվանդ Վերջինի տոհմաբանության շուրջ

Abstract

Strabo's message about the Armenian king Yervand the Last, as from the "genus of Hydarnes" refers only to King Yervand, and not to the Yervandid dynasty. In the interval of 200 years between Hydarnes and Yervand, Tiribaz was the last ancestry link on the paternal side. Tiribaz is mentioned in Xenophon's "Anabasis" as a hiparchos (regional chief, viceroy) of "Western Armenia" and close relative of Artaxerxes II: "when he was present, no one else put the king on a horse." This witnesses the fact that Tiribaz was a Persian of high birth. To our firm belief, he was also the High Priest of Armenia. The sculpture of rider on Achaemenid silver rhyton from Arin-berd (Erebuni) depicts him. The headdress of the rider is the same as that of a warrior from the priestly class of the bodyguards of the Persian kings, in contrast to the warrior representing the military class. Xenophon, having relationship with Tiribaz not in religious, but in official affairs, could not know that the name Tiribaz conveyed the meaning of priest, because the first component of the name Tiribaz is the name of the God-priest Tir. Artashes I overthrew Yervand the Last (who was considered an illegal ruler) and restored the legal rule of the Yervandid (from the Haykazuns) dynasty, which is mentioned in the sources from the 6-th century BC. Consequently, from the Hydarnes genus (foreign, Persian origin) was not the Yervandid dynasty, but King Yervand the Last represented by his ancestor, the High Priest of Armenia Tiribaz. According to Movses Khorenatsi, Yervand the Last was from the previous dynasty (Arshakids//Yervandids) not on the paternal, but on the maternal side and Artashes I, on the contrary, on the paternal side. Claims to the contrary are unfounded.