αβασιλευτοι - THOSE WHO HAVE NO KING

On the question of the ethnicity of the autonomous tribes (who are not subject to kings) living on the banks of the Araxes, who came to the aid of the Armenian king Tigran II the Great in his fight against the Romans (Plut., Luc., 26, 4)

Abstract

In the issue no. 1 (1992) of the journal Vestnik Drevnei Istorii (Journal of Ancient History) the article by R. L. Manaseryan entitled “International Relations in the Near East in the 80s–70s BCE (Tigranes II and the Troops from the Banks of the Araxes)” was published In this study, the author sought to clarify the ethnic identity of the autonomous tribes from the banks of the Araxes River who arrived at the military camp of the Armenian king Tigranes II the Great on the eve of his clash with the Romans. Manaseryan acknowledged that, given the current state of the sources, the solution he proposed was inevitably hypothetical. Through a detailed interpretation of the available evidence, he ruled out the possibility that these tribes had lived on the Armenian Highlands, specifically along the course of the Araxes River flowing into the Caspian Sea. According to Manaseryan, accepting the presence of such a tribe in Greater Armenia during the reign of Tigranes the Great would require recognition of a circumstance that he regarded as fundamentally incompatible with the political realities of the period [34:152-153]. On the basis of these considerations, R. L. Manaseryan concluded that Plutarch’s account refers not to the Armenian Araxes Rivers, but rather to the Central Asian Araxes, that is, the Amu Darya. While acknowledging a certain degree of hypothetical uncertainty in his conclusions, Manaseryan nevertheless suggested that the tribes in question were most likely the Sacaraucae. This position was reiterated without modification in the second edition of his monograph (Manaseryan Ruben. Tigran Mets. Hayastani payk‘ary Hṙomi yev Part‘evastani dem, m.t‘.a. 94–64 t‘t‘., Yerevan, 2007, 261 pp.) [35:101-107], as well as in the second book of the first volume of the recent academic edition of the History of Armenia, 2024 [19:313-314]. However, a detailed analysis of both the primary sources and the relevant scholarly literature raises certain doubts regarding the validity of Manaseryan’s conclusions and indicates possible inconsistencies with the evidence preserved in the sources. As far as I know, following Manaseryan’s publications, the question of identifying the ethnic affiliation of the autonomous (“who are not subject to kings”) tribes from the banks of the Araxes River has not been revisited in scholarly debate. Moreover, a number of aspects—textological, etymological, historical, geographical, and political—which could have substantially affected the conclusions reached, were not sufficiently taken into account by the respected scholar. These considerations make it necessary to revisit the issue and seek further clarification.