Artaxiad dynasty

Under the Artaxiad king Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55 BC), the Kingdom of Armenia reached its greatest territorial extent, extending for a brief period from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea.

[4] According to David Marshall Lang, it was in 200 BC that Artaxias, incited by Antiochus, overthrew Orontes and took power in Greater Armenia.

Scholars believe that Artaxias and Zariadres were not foreign generals, but local figures related to the previous Orontid dynasty.

[7] According to historian Nina Garsoïan, Artaxias and Zariadres likely belonged to different branches of the Orontid dynasty than the previous kings of Armenia.

Cleopatra, the wife of Tigranes the Great, invited Greeks such as the rhetor Amphicrates and the historian Metrodorus of Scepsis to the Armenian court, and – according to Plutarch – when the Roman general Lucullus seized the Armenian capital Tigranocerta, he found a troupe of Greek actors who had arrived to perform plays for Tigranes.

[16] Artaxias built boundary stones (stelae), reminiscent of Achaemenid models, around Lake Sevan to demarcate landholdings.

[17] The boundary stones, covered in Aramaic script as a claim to royal power, indicate an Achaemenid crown and his "neo-Persian" kingship.

[19] Despite the fact that Artaxias built boundary steles with inscriptions in the Aramaic alphabet, the Artaxiad dynasty's coinage are entirely in Greek.

[22] As historian James R. Russell states, "It was only natural that the Artaxiad monarchs should declare themselves philhellenes, yet it must not be thought that their religious beliefs ceased to be what they had been of old: staunchly Zoroastrian.

"[13] David Marshall Lang adds that the Hellenistic religion and the pantheon of the Classical divinities had undoubtedly become popular amongst the upper classes in the later Artaxiad period.

When Mark Antony became ruler of Rome's eastern provinces, he began to suspect the loyalty of Artavasdes, who had married his sister to the heir to the Parthian throne.

Artavasdes' son Artaxias II gained help from the Parthians, seized the throne back and massacred the Roman garrisons in Armenia, but after a reign of ten years he was murdered.

The kingdom broke down into a civil war between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian parties until it decisively became a Roman protectorate under the emperor Augustus.