Founding
period of Yervanduni kingdom
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The Satrapy of Armenia (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴, romanized: Armina or 𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴𐎹, Arminiya), a region controlled by the Orontid dynasty (570–201 BC), was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC that later became an independent kingdom. Its capital were Erebuni.
The Orontid dynasty, or known by their native name, Eruandid or Yervanduni, was an Iranian hereditary dynasty that ruled the satrapy of Armenia, the successor state to the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu (Ararat). It is suggested that it held dynastic familial linkages to the ruling Achaemenid dynasty. Throughout their existence, the Orontids stressed their lineage from the Achaemenids to strengthen their political legitimacy.
Members of the dynasty ruled Armenia intermittently during the period spanning from the 6th to at least the 2nd centuries BC, first as client kings or satraps of the Median and Achaemenid empires and later, after the collapse of the Achaemenid empire, as rulers of an independent kingdom, and later as kings of Sophene and Commagene, which eventually succumbed to the Roman Empire.
Following the demise of the Achaemenid Empire, the Satrapy of Armenia was incorporated into Alexander's empire. After Alexander's death, the Orontids gained independence from 321 BC until 301 BC when the Kingdom of Armenia fell to the Seleucid Empire. In 212 BC, Xerxes, King of Armenia revolted against the Seleucids but capitulated when besieged at his capital, Arsamasota, by Antiochus III.
Despite the Hellenistic invasion of Persia, Persian and local Armenian culture remained the strongest element within society and the elites.
The Orontid administration used Aramaic, where it was used in official documents for centuries. Whereas most inscriptions used Old Persian cuneiform. Xenophon used an interpreter to speak to Armenians, while some Armenian villages were conversant in Persian.
The Greek inscriptions at Armavir indicate that the upper classes used Greek as one of their languages. Under Orontes IV (r. ca. 210–200 B.C.), the structure of government had begun to resemble Greek institutions, and Greek was used as the language of the royal court. Orontes IV had surrounded himself by the Hellenized nobility and sponsored the establishment of a Greek school in Armavir, the capital of the Armenian kingdom.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Satrapy of Armenia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.