With each of the two contemporary powers in the region—the Abbasids and Byzantines—too preoccupied to concentrate their forces on 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.

However, after Hovhannes-Smbat's death in 1041, his successor, Gagik II, refused to hand over Ani and continued resistance until 1045, when his kingdom, plagued by internal and external threats, was finally taken by Byzantine forces.

Theodore Rshtuni, the Armenian Curopalates, signed a peace treaty with the Caliphate, although the continuing war with the Arabs and Byzantines soon led to further destruction throughout Armenia.

Taking advantage of the overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbasids, a second rebellion was conceived, although it too was met with failure, partly because of the tense relationship between the Bagratuni and Mamikonian families.

The Abbasids marched into Armenia with an army of 30,000 men and decisively crushed the rebellion and its instigators at the Battle of Bagrevand on April 24, 775, leaving a void for the sole largely intact family, the Bagratunis, to fill.

[16] Following the end of the third rebellion, which the Bagratunis had wisely chosen not to participate in, and the dispersal of several of the princely houses, the family was left without any formidable rivals.

[18] Ashot began to annex the lands that formerly belonged to the Mamikonians and actively campaigned against the emirs as a sign of his allegiance to the Caliphate, who in 804 bestowed upon him the title of ishkhan.

[24] In 884, the Caliph Al-Mu'tamid, reacting to the demands of Armenian princes and religious leaders and, more importantly, the security risks in allowing Armenia to fall under the Byzantine orbit, sent a crown to Ashot, recognizing him as king.

The force, accompanying Ashot and led by the Domestic of the Schools Leo Phokas, moved out the next year and marched along Upper Euphrates, entering Taron with scant opposition from the Arabs.

Finally, in 929, Yusuf died and an immense power struggle ensued between rival Iranian and Kurdish families in Azerbaijan, thus reducing the Arab threat to Armenia.

In the same year that he became king, Abas traveled to Dvin, where he was able to convince the Arab governor there to release several Armenian hostages and turn over control of the pontifical palace back to Armenia.

Ashot III's official investiture as king of Armenia took place in 961, following the relocation of the Holy See of Cilicia from Vaspurakan to Argina, near the city of Ani.

Ani's natural defenses were well suited Ashot's desire to secure an area which could withstand siege and fell on a trade route that passed from Dvin to Trebizond.

[44] Owing to this trade route, the city quickly began to grow and became Bagratuni Armenia's chief political, cultural and economic center.

Shops, markets, workshops, inns were established by the city's merchants and populace while the nakharar elite went on to sponsor the building of magnificent mansions and palaces.

Ashot also had unsuccessfully attempted to capture Dvin from the Shaddadid emir in 953; he had laid siege to it for quite some time but was forced to lift it after finding the city too well defended.

Constantinople's official policy was that no Christian ruler is equal to or independent of the Byzantine emperor, and even if it was at time masked with diplomatic compromises, the empire's ultimate goal was the complete annexation of the Armenian realms.

In 1016, Senekerim-Hovhannes thus offered Basil II the lands of Vaspurakan, including 72 fortresses and 3000-4000 villages, in exchange for a vast domain farther west on the Byzantine territory centered on the city of Sebastia to which he moved in 1021 together with his family and 14,000 retainers.

[49] Basil II had meanwhile already sent an army from the Balkans to Vaspurakan (which they also called Vasprakania, Asprakania, or Media) even before Senekerim-Hovhannes' offer and reduced it to another Byzantine theme with Van as regional capital.

In these tumultuous days, embroiled in territorial quarrels, the childless Hovhannes-Smbat sent Catholicos Petros Getadardz to Byzantium in order to negotiate a partial respite by leaving his kingdom to the empire after his death.

Immediate results of this action were unknown, but after the death of the two brothers in 1040–41, the new Byzantine emperor and successor to Basil II claimed the kingdom of Bagratid Armenia.

Byzantium repeatedly demanded for communion with the Armenian Church as prerequisite for sending aid to the Bagratunis but most attempts failed to bear any fruit.

An anti-feudal and heretical Christian sect that had been crushed by the Arabs with the Armenian Church's support in the 9th century, the Tondrakian movement attracted many followers during this period.

From Ani, Armenia exported textiles, metalwork, armor, jewelry, horses, cattle, salt, wine, honey, timber, leather, and furs.

On the north shore of Lake Van in the ninth and tenth centuries, there was also a considerable Muslim population that consisted of ethnic Arabs, and later Dailamites from Azerbaijan.

[59] The Arab raids and invasion of Armenia as well as the devastation wrought upon the land during the Byzantine-Arab wars had largely stifled any expression of Armenian culture in fields such as historiography, literature and architecture.

The lack of a strong Arab presence saw a rise in the number of historians, who wrote and documented the relations between Armenia and other countries and described many events that took place from the seventh to eleventh centuries.

The relative period of peace between Byzantium and Armenia during the second half of the 10th century led to a great deal of interaction between Armenian artists and their Greek counterparts.

"[61] The city of Ani, situated on the important trade intersection between the Byzantines, Arabs, and merchants of other countries, grew throughout the 9th century both commercially and culturally, earning renown for its "40 gates and 1,001 churches.

"[26] The churches of this period expanded on 7th century designs; they were often steeper in elevation, introduced donor portraits in the round and incorporated ideas from Byzantine and Islamic architecture.