Identity / Movses Khorenatsi / The History of the Armenians

The History of the Armenians consists of three books.

• The first book explores the origins of the Armenian people, focusing in detail on the patriarch Hayk and his descendants—Aram, Aramanyak, Ara, and others.
• The second book is devoted to the history of the Arsacid (Arshakuni) dynasty and concludes with the events surrounding the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Armenia.
• The third book recounts the history of Tiridates III’s successors, the first partition of Armenia between Persia and Rome in 387 AD, and the eventual fall of the Arsacid kingdom in 428 AD.

Khorenatsi drew upon a wide range of both Armenian and foreign sources, including literary, documentary, oral, and material evidence. Among the foreign written sources he cites are the Bible, the works of Homer, Herodotus, Manetho, Josephus Flavius, Eusebius of Caesarea, and others. His Armenian sources include both pre-Mashtotsian and post-Mashtotsian materials. Pre-Mashtotsian sources include the writings of Mar Abas Catina (2nd century BC), the Templar Histories, and The Useful Weave. Post-Mashtotsian literary sources include the works of Koryun, Agathangelos, and Faustus of Byzantium. Among the documentary sources are the Gahnamak—a registry of noble families and their ranks at the royal court—and foreign-language inscriptions discovered in Armenia. He also incorporated oral traditions, such as epic tales and songs collected from gusans (minstrels), including The Birth of Vahagn, Artashes and Satenik, Tigran and Azhdahak, as well as origin legends of noble houses and other traditional narratives.

Thanks to its well-structured composition, accurate chronology, and periodization, The History of the Armenians has become an enduring national treasure and a landmark of global historiographical thought. It served as a model for medieval Armenian historians, was widely copied, and remained the principal textbook on Armenian history in Armenian schools until the mid-19th century.