Victory Through Defeat: The Battle of Avarayr 451 Part II - Battle and Aftermath

Taking advantage of his numbers and the knowledge of Vasak and his Zoroastrian Armenians, Mushkan invaded Armenia, building a fortified camp in the province of Her and Zarevand and sending out raiding parties across the land. Vardan responded by detaching a force of 2,000 men under Arandzar Amatuni to intercept these Persian raiders. This was successful, winning a victory and forcing the raiders back to Mushkan’s camp in disarray. Vasak continues his attempts to divide the Armenian rebel camp, but the priests in Vardan’s camp were able to rebut these efforts, keeping the Christian force together (Elishe 105-106).

With any further efforts of division seemingly futile, Mushkan called together Vasak and his other Armenian allies to discuss tactics for the upcoming battle. They seem to have focused on not only their numbers but also their elephant corps being the decisive wing of their army. Each elephant was to be accompanied by 3,000 infantry, which would seem somewhat similar to the 20th century use of tanks to punch a hole in enemy lines, with its infantry support then exploiting those holes. Mushkan reminded his soldiers of the punishment for fleeing battle – execution, exile of family and loss of ancestral homes.

With that, Mushkan deployed his force across the plain of Avarayr, with the Armenians opposite, the two armies separated by the Tghmout tributary of the Araxes river, on 26 May 451. Vardan divided his force of cavalry, archers, spearmen and swordsman into four corps. On his right, he placed a mixed forced of infantry and cavalry under Koren; his centre was made up of infantry under Nershapuh and he took personal command of the mixed infantry and cavalry corps on the Armenian left. Surely part of the Armenian plan was to use the Tghmout, a name meaning ‘muddy’, to hinder the Persian superiority in numbers. That said, the muddy waters of the Tghmont might have acted as a hindrance to the Armenian cavalry, which Vardan would have been relying upon to do significant damage. The fourth corps was held in reserve under his brother, Hamazaspian. The Persians, under the command of Mushkan and possibly Dolvech, were divided into five corps - mixed cavalry and infantry on their left, an infantry centre supported by elephants, a massed corps of various cavalry units on their right, another elephant-supported infantry corps in the centre second line and a reserve elite guard around Mushkan in the rear.

Before battle was joined, Vardan addressed his men, invoking the deeds of the Maccabees who in winning their freedom from the Seleucid Greeks over six hundred years previously had overcome massive odds in fighting for their faith (2 Maccabees; Josephus, AJ XII; BJ I.). Catchumens were then baptised, and communion was taken. Mushkan will likely have told his men that they need only resist the initial Armenian charge and then make their numerical superiority tell.

The Battle of Avarayr began with a mutual advance towards the waters of the Tghmont. The Christian Armenians, defending their side bank of the river, had the better of the initial fighting, being able to prevent the Persians from crossing the Tghmont. And when the Armenian infantry on the left began to falter, the inevitable charge of the heavy Armenian cavalry drove segments of the Persian wings back. However, the Armenian left was over-zealous in its charge, throwing itself into as much confusion as it did to the Persian right flank. Perhaps the Persian halting of the infantry assault by the Armenian left contributed to the Armenian left wing cavalry assault becoming detached from its support. Vardan responded by gathering the rest of the left wing along with his reserve to try to retrieve the situation with some success. Hamazaspian aided the Armenian centre against the elephants, while Vardan’s reconstituted left wing drove the Persian cavalry away from the river and towards the rear of the battlefield.

Vardan’s decisive action appeared to have put the Sassanids on the back foot, with their massed cavalry right wing dispersed and the Persian commander now within striking distance of Vardan’s cavalry. The appearance of Armenian cavalry in their rear might even have seen the Persian centre begin to disengage (Elishe 117).

However, the Armenian left and reserve were now over-committed and remained detached from the support of the rest of their army beyond the waters of the Tghmont. They were soon assailed on all sides by various Sassanid forces - the elephant ‘tank’ corps from the second line, Mushkan’s elite guard and a reconstituted cavalry corps. As the Persian cavalry included Huns and had a tradition of employing steppe tactics, it could be that the collapse of the Persian right was something of a feigned flight, meant to draw the Armenians into the over-extending. More likely, it was something of a welcome bonus for Mushkan that the temporary collapse of his cavalry wing had led to the destruction of the Armenian left.

Isolated and overwhelmed, Vardan Mamikonian went down fighting, dying a martyr’s death, along with several hundred other Armenian nobles. Without their leader, not to mention their left wing and reserve, the Armenians and their allies fought valiantly, but by the end of the day their resistance had been broken and the survivors dispersed into the highlands. The Armenians may have lost over 1,000 dead, but they sold their lives dearly, killing perhaps 3,500 of Mushkan’s army. In his brief account of the Battle of Avarayr, Lazar 72 attributes the Armenian defeat primarily to defection through the machinations of Vasak.

Looking to take advantage of the rebel defeat at Avarayr and perhaps also Persian reticence to continue the fight in the face of the casualties they had endured, Vasak led an attack a fortress held by rebel survivors from Avarayr. However, he failed to stop 700 men stealing out of the fortress under dark, which may have contributed to him executing 213 of those who surrendered to him through lack of supplies (Mushkan refused to allow Vasak to execute the Christian priests who surrendered).

Through Mushkan and Vasak, Yazdegerd offered an amnesty should the remaining rebels surrender, but it was not believed by the Christian Armenians, many of whom took to the hills. This led to a siege of the Blue Mountain, seemingly in the Araxes valley, where Armenian rebels held out against a force of Persian cavalry, while Vasak launched further raiding parties.

Other Armenian garrisons decided not to wait for their inevitable siege and took to counter-raiding, seemingly going as far as to invade Persian territory, possibly Media Atropatene once more. A column under Hmayeak Mamikonian, another brother of Vardan, fell upon and defeated a Persian raiding force in the Tayk’ valley, although Hmayeak died in the process. The Armenians may also have encouraged a Hunnic raid through the Caucasus, with Persian possessions in Armenia sacked.

This Armenian riposte seems to have discouraged further raiding by Persian forces, or at least getting bogged down in capturing settlements and forts, with Mushkan departing for the court of Yazdegerd to give a report of Avarayr and the aftermath. The Persian king, aggrieved at the loss of men, the raiding of his territory and particularly the loss of the Derbent Pass, felt that he was not getting a true picture of the events in Armenia from his generals and allies, and so was urged to invite some leading Armenian Christians to meet the newly appointed Persian marzban of Armenia, Adhur-Hormizd, to give their side of events.

Adhur-Hormizd proved willing to listen and compiled a report taking in the testimony of leading Armenian Christians, nobles and clergy, even though some of those men had destroyed Zoroastrian temples and imprisoned magi. Many of these leading Armenian Christians also travelled to a tribunal at the Persian royal court, where they were interviewed by Mihr-Narseh, with the court perhaps finding out how much of a distorted view of the situation they were receiving from Vasak. Knowing more of the story and informed by Adhur-Hormizd that Armenian rebels still held important strongholds, Mihr-Narseh, and therefore presumably Yazdegerd, “commanded the country to be subdued with goodwill” (Elishe 130).

While many Armenian Christians doubted (with justification) the sincerity of Yazdegerd II’s offer of amnesty and religious tolerance in return for an end of the rebellion, Adhur-Hormizd does seem to have proven a tolerant governor. He allowed bishops, priests and monks to return to their sees and churches, and to worship openly. Christians were allowed to reclaim their land and possessions. He even invited those who had been forced to apostasise to reclaim their Christian faith. Furthermore, in areas that had been plundered, he relieved their burden through tax relief (Elishe 130-131).

This marzban report, hazarapet interview and positive but wary response to Adhur-Hormizd’s tolerance developed into a royal tribunal where Persian officials and Armenian nobles, Christian and Zoroastrian, testified about the events leading up to, during and after the rebellion.

In the record of Elishe 132-134, this tribunal almost seems to have turned into something of a trial of Vasak and his actions, who had not only betrayed and deceived his Armenian brethren, but also been in contact with the Romans and even had seized some forts from the Persians. Mushkan, his commander at Avarayr, accused Vasak of continuing to attack Christian Armenians even after the rebellion was supposedly over and also stealing tax revenue from the royal treasury. Even his own apostate friends and relatives turned against Vasak, claiming he had imprisoned magi and been the source of much harm to both Armenia and the Persian army, including collusion with the Huns.

Upon hearing of these myriad grievances from Mihr-Narseh, Yazdegerd II had Vasak ceremonially and publicly degraded, having him stripped of all “the honours bestowed on him by the court” (Elishe 137). Vasak was then imprisoned to face daily humiliation, before eventually dying seeming of horrible disease (Elishe 139), although this appears to be another story influenced by the demises of other previous persecutors, like Herod (Eusebius, HE I.7) and Antiochus (2 Maccabees 9:9). It must be said that the Armenian rebels who travelled to the Persian royal court did not get off scot-free, with some 40 priests and nobles facing imprisonment and punishment, although Elishe 142 would have it that this ill-treatment of the Armenians encouraged the Huns to attack Persian territory again, inflicting further defeat on Yazdegerd.

While it would become “a symbol of resistance and remembrance against their Zoroastrian neighbours” (Daryaee (2009), 24), Avarayr had been a decisive defeat for the Mamikonians and their Christian allies. It was the circumstances in the aftermath of the battle that increased its stature as an act of religious defiance and martyrdom: the willingness of some to fight on despite the defeat and huge loss of leadership and the raiding of the apostate Vasak. However, we should not overlook the importance of on-going trouble on the Persian eastern frontier against various Asiatic tribes in encouraging Yazdegerd and his royal successors to take opportunities to shut down the Armenian front. In 451 specifically, could we even suggest that rather than the limited counterattacks after Avarayr by remaining Armenian rebels, it was instead the ability and willingness of the Huns to raid through the Derbent Pass, aided by Armenian urging and Albanian control of it, that shocked Yazdegerd and his generals into looking for a more peaceful end to the fighting in Caucasia? Better the pin-pricks of a war-ravaged Christian Armenia than to risk another Asiatic storm from the northern frontier.

It should also not be overlooked that Avarayr and its aftermath was not the end of the struggle. In 481, a rebellion manifested in Caucasia under the Iberian king, Vakhtang I, which while perhaps initially more about Iberian expansion and alliance with the Romans, took on similar aspects of the defence of Christianity in the face of the propagation of Zoroastrianism under the sponsorship of the Persians. Initially, the Armenians held aloof from the rebellion, but as it took on more of a religious streak, under the leadership of Vardan’s nephew and eldest son of Hmayeak, Vahan Mamikonian, the Armenians joined in. They inflicted a significant defeat on the then Persian marzban of Armenia, Adhur Gushnasp, at the Battle of Akori. Persian reinforcements were then defeated at Nersehapat in early 483; however, these two victories were avenged by another Persian force under Shapur Mihran defeating Vahan at Akesga later in the year. A further raid into Armenia by Shapur forced Vahan to retreat west to the Romano-Armenian frontier.

With the rebellion and perhaps Armenian autonomy hanging by a thread, they received what must have seemed to some as divine intervention. The Persian king by that time was Peroz I, son of Yazdegerd II, and he did not feature personally during the Caucasian rebellion of 481-484 for similar reasons as his father – Asiatic attacks on the Persian eastern frontier. Indeed, Peroz was killed fighting the Hephthalites in 484, so his immediate successor, Balash (484-488), granted the Armenian Christians freedom of worship in return for military service alongside the Persians against the tribes in what became known as the Treaty of Nvarsak in 484. In the process, Vahan was appointed hazarapet and then later marzban of Armenia, aiding Balash against a usurpation in his lands. Some tensions remained on into the 6th century, although these focused more on the political autonomy of Eastern Armenia (that autonomy seems to have ended with the removal of Vahan’s brother, Vard, as marzban), with the Persians not interfering in the religious freedom of Armenia again, for fear of reawakening Caucasian rebellion and even drawing in the Romans.

Therefore, while Avarayr was only the beginning of a religious struggle, perhaps even the very first battle in defence of the Christian faith in Armenia, it was a struggle that was to see Armenian Christians practise freely. The death of Vardan Mamkonian became viewed as a martyrdom, establishing him as an Armenian national hero and eventually a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church.

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