Mamikonian
They were the most notable noble house in Early Christian Armenia after the ruling Arsacid dynasty and held the hereditary positions of sparapet (supreme commander of the army) and dayeak (royal tutor), allowing them to play the role of kingmaker for the later Armenian kings.
[1][2] Their influence over Armenian affairs began to decline at the end of the 6th century and suffered a final, decisive blow after a failed rebellion against Arab rule over Armenia in 774/75.
Movses Khorenatsi in his History of Armenia (traditionally dated to the 5th century) claims that in the year of the death of Ardashir I (i.e., 242) a nobleman of Chen (Old Armenian: Ճեն, plural Ճենք, Chenk’, thought to refer to China) origin named Mamgon fled to the Persian court after being sentenced to death by Arbok Chen-bakur, his foster brother (or half-brother) and the king of Chenk’, due to the scheming of a third brother and prince, Bghdokh.
Chen-bakur demanded Mamgon's extradition from Ardashir's successor, Shapur I, who instead exiled the prince to Armenia, where he entered the service of the Armenian king Trdat and received land for him and his entourage to settle, founding the Mamikonian dynasty.
[6] Although it seems that the legend of Mamikonian origins, even if untrue, does indeed concern China, more recent scholarship suggests that Chenk’ is to be identified either with the Tzans, a Kartvelian tribe in the southern Caucasus, or with a Central Asian group living near the Syr Darya river.
[2][6] Nicholas Adontz believed the legend to be "a confusion, prompted by the love of exotic origins, between the ethnicon čen and that of the Georgian Čan-ians (Tzanni) or Lazi[...] who were settled in the neighbourhood of Tayk῾.
[11][12] Under the late Arsacid Kingdom of Armenia, the family occupied a preeminent position among the Armenian noble houses: they were hereditary commanders-in-chief of the army (sparapet) and royal tutors (dayeak) and controlled large domains, including most of Taron and Tayk.
[2] The family first appears in the early 4th century, although Toumanoff asserts that Mancaeus, who defended Tigranocerta against the Romans in 69 BC, was a member of the dynasty.
According to Pavstos Buzand, Vache Mamikonian, son of Artavazd and sparapet of Armenia, was ordered by King Khosrov III to exterminate two feuding noble families, the Manavazians and the Ordunis.
[13] Vache also successfully defended Armenia against Sanesan, the invading king of the Maskuts, slaying the latter in a battle near Oshakan Fortress and receiving new holdings as reward.
[17] After years of warfare, multiple other Armenian lords defected to the Persian side, including Vasak's renegade brother Vahan Mamikonian.
[17][18] Vasak was succeeded as sparapet by his son Mushegh I Mamikonian,[12] who restored Arshak's heir, Pap, to the throne c. 367/370 with the support of an imperial army sent by the emperor Valens.
Varazdat attempted to free himself of Mamikonian tutelage by ordering Mushegh's murder and replacing him as sparapet with a non-Mamikonian noble, Smbat Saharuni.
Varazdat fled abroad and Manuel installed the two underage sons of Pap, Vagharshak (Vologases) and Arshak as kings of Armenia under the formal regency of their mother, Zarmandukht.
[19] Manuel also married his daughter Vardandukht to Arshak III and accepted the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire, as Roman power had effectively ended in the East following the defeat at Adrianople in 378.
Several Mamikonian nobles served as presiding princes of Armenia under Arab rule, but the house lost its traditional office of sparapet to the Bagratunis in the 8th century.
This marriage created the Kaysite dynasty of Arminiya centered in Manzikert, the most powerful Muslim Arab emirate in the Armenian Highlands region, and thus ending the existence of the Mamikonian line in Armenia.
