acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

SIVAS—ARMENIAN MIGRATION 145
Turk, while others allege that at bottom it is all
Timur's doing.
For Sivas is au ancient city, with a varied past
of greatness and tragedy. In Roman Asia Minor
it was the flourishing city of Sebastea. In Byzantine
times it went on to greater importance, and had its
most prosperous da3^s following the reign of the great
Justinian. What Asia Minor was like in that era
we can only dimly realise, but know it was filled
with large cities, and that among them all Sebastea
ranked second— Csesarea, which had at one time
400,000 inhabitants, being the first. In the eleventh
century Sebastea became Armenian by a curious
political transaction. An Armenian king, Senekherim
I., whose native realm around Lake Van adjoined
the territory of the Seljuk sultans, found his home
prospects disquieting. Rather than struggle against
these powerful and restless neighbours he sought
personal ease and comfort. He made over his border
kingdom to the Byzantine emperor, and received in
exchange the province and city of Sebastea, which
he ruled in the dual capacity of viceroy and king.
Many Armenians followed their sovereign, both at
that time and subsequently, and thus the city and
district received a large Armenian population which
has remained to the present day. A century and
a half following this migration of a timid king the
Seljuks were in Sebastea itself
Two centuries of prosperity followed, and then
Timur came, taking ErzerCim and Erzingan on his
way, storming impregnable castles, and filling up
ravines with trees and rocks to forward his operations.
With his military proficiency and heavy hand
he made short work of Sebastea, and reduced the
population of 100,000 by two-thirds. One never goes
far in Asia Minor without coming upon memories
of Timur — he got as far west as Smyrna, which
he stormed — and often they have freshness and
reality ; at Sivas they have these qualities in full.
At the present day Sivas, with a population of
K