Armenia and its sorrows

HISTORY OF THE NATION 29
Armenia was the theatre of incessant warfare between
the Greeks and Mohammedans.
To adopt the lanouage of a native writer:
" Armenia has been over and over inundated with
the blood of her inhabitants, enriched with their
carcases scattered upon her face ; her beautiful and
bright sky was often rendered foggy and smoky on
account of the conflagrations of her immense cities
and numerous towns, kindled by the enemies ; her
beautiful sons and daughters were torn away from
the bosoms of their parents, carried away as captives
and sold for slaves ; her magniticent churches and
monasteries were converted into mosques and iekefi.
Yet the house of Togarmah marched on through all
these tremendous seas of oppression, persecution,
cruelty, and injustice, from a remote antiquity to the
end of the fourteenth century of our era, lifting up
the old—centuries old—flag of liberty, torn to pieces
and ready to fall into an irreparable dissolution."
The close of the ninth century saw the downtrodden
nation once more emerge into a position
of practical independence. In a.d. 885, Ashcod I.
ascended the throne and founded the dynasty of the
Bagratidse, who are supposed to be descended from
King David, A period of prosperity ensued until
A.D. 1079, when the Greeks seized a part of the
country, and the Turks and Kurds made themselves
masters of the rest. A few native princes maintained
a precarious independence, and gradually a nominal
kingdom was restored under the Rhupenian dynasty.
This lasted till a.d. 1375, when the country was
captured by the Saracens, and Leo IV., the last of the
Armenian kings, was taken captive to Cairo. After
serving a period of imprisonment, he was set at
liberty, and ended his mortal career at Paris, on the
19th of November 1393.
Armenia never recovered from the blow. From