Arzanene

Arzanene (Greek: Ἀρζανηνή) or Aghdznik (Armenian: Աղձնիք, romanized: Ałjnikʻ) was a historical region in the southwest of the ancient kingdom of Armenia.

[2] The region briefly became home to the capital of Armenia during the reign of Tigranes the Great, who built his namesake city Tigranocerta there.

[3] It is generally agreed the Greco-Roman name of Arzanene is derived from the city of Arzan (Arzn or Aghzn in Armenian), which was probably the capital of the province.

[2] Josef Markwart and Toumanoff include the adjacent provinces of Moxoene (Mokk’) and Corduene (or part of it) in the viceroyalty of Arzanene, although this is rejected by Hewsen.

[7] In the first half of the first millennium BCE, Arzanene may have been the location of the state of Alzi or Alše mentioned in Assyrian and Urartian cuneiform inscriptions.

After the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE, Arzanene became a part of the Armenian kingdom ruled by the Orontid dynasty.

During the reign of Tigranes the Great, under whom Armenia reached its greatest territorial extent, Arzanene became the center of his short-lived empire as the location of the new capital of Tigranocerta.

[12] In the 330s, bdeashkh Bakur of Arzanene attempted to defect to the Sasanian Empire, but was killed in battle and the province consequently remained under Roman (or Roman-Armenian) control.

[13] Faustus of Byzantium (Book 5, Chapter 16) names Arzanene among the provinces reconquered for Armenia by Mushegh Mamikonian c. 371, during the reign of King Pap.

[3] After the Peace of Acilisene of 387, Arzanene was divided between Rome and the Sasanian Empire (with most of it going to the Persians), and until 591 the Roman-Sasanian border passed through the western part of the province.