The Armenian Military
in the Byzantine Empire
Conflict and alliance under Justinian and Maurice

Armen Ayvazyan

Foreword by Ilkka Syvanne

EAN : 9782917329399
Ed. SIGEST, 128 pages, 15×21 cm.
€14,50 / $19,95

“Dr. Ayvazyan has managed to perform an almost impossible
task. He has demonstrated that, despite the perceived paucity
of the relevant historical evidence, it is still possible to arrive
at a completely new, well-substantiated and plausible
reconstruction of the Armenian rebellion in 538-539.”
Ilkka Syvanne, Ph.D.

5 offbeat questions to the author:

1) Who are you ?
A scholar.
2) What is the central theme of your book ?
Armenian resistance to the colonial policies of the Byzantine Empire.
3) If you had to bring forward a sentence of your book, which you
would choose?
In spite of all countermeasures taken by the major powers of the time – the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia, the Armenian armed forces continued to maintain an exceptional level of professional skill and combat effectiveness (and in Persarmenia – their organizational and command structure as well), regularly demonstrating them in subsequent military vicissitudes and, in the long run, effectively retaining the opportunity for Armenia to restore its full independence, if as late as 885.
4) If your book was a music, which it would be?
“Ride of the Valkyries” from Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre.
5) What would you like to share with your readers first and foremost?
The booming studies of the Romano-Byzantine and Partho-Persian militaries could hardly claim to be inclusive without a closer analysis of the enduringly dynamic armed forces of neighboring Armenia, may the latter be an intermittently fully independent or autonomous actor in the historical Near East. Almost incessant wars waged against the armies of such superpowers as Parthia/Persia and Rome/Byzantium (more often than not in alliance with one of them against the other) as well as against the Caucasian mountaineers and the invading nomads from Central Asia acquainted the Armenian military with the most
potent war machines of the time and, by necessity, helped to develop strategies for opposing each of them and adopting their foes’ warfare practices, thus enriching the resourcefulness of Armenian battlefield tactics.