Zariadres was an

Orontid The Orontid dynasty, also known as the Eruandids or Eruandunis, ruled the Satrapy of Armenia until 330 BC and the Kingdom of Armenia from 321 BC to 200 BC. The Orontids ruled first as client kings or satraps of the Achaemenid Empire and after ...

ruler of

Sophene Sophene ( hy, Ծոփք, translit=Tsopkʻ, grc, Σωφηνή, translit=Sōphēnē or hy, Չորրորդ Հայք, lit=Fourth Armenia) was a province of the ancient kingdom of Armenia, located in the south-west of the kingdom, and of the Ro ...

Name

''Zariadres'' () is the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

transliteration of an

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

name, attested as ZRYTR (ZRYHR) in the

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

engravings in Sevan and

Siwnik Syunik ( hy, Սյունիք, ) is the southernmost province of Armenia. It is bordered by the Vayots Dzor Province to the north, Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic exclave to the west, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran to the south. ...

, and as ''Zareh'' in

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

n sources. The name is derived from

Old Iranian The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian plateau, Iranian Pl ...

''Zari āθra'' ("with golden fire").

Biography

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...

cites

being taken over by a "general" of king

Antiochus III Antiochus III the Great (; grc-gre, Ἀντίoχoς Μέγας ; c. 2413 July 187 BC) was a Greek Hellenistic king and the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire, reigning from 222 to 187 BC. He ruled over the region of Syria and large parts of the res ...

by 200 BC, called Zariadres.Strabo, ''Geography'' 11.14.5 Following the defeat of Antiochus III by the Romans at the

Battle of Magnesia The Battle of Magnesia took place in either December 190 or January 189 BC. It was fought as part of the Roman–Seleucid War, pitting forces of the Roman Republic led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus and the allied Kingdom of Pe ...

in 190 BC, Zariadres and Artaxias revolted and with Roman consent began to reign as kings under the terms of the

Treaty of Apamea The Treaty of Apamea was a peace treaty conducted in 188 BC between the Roman Republic and Antiochus III, ruler of the Seleucid Empire. It ended the Roman–Seleucid War. The treaty took place after Roman victories at the Battle of Thermopylae ( ...

in 188 BC—Zariadres over Sophene and Artaxias over Armenia. It is possible that Zariadres (Dsariadres) was the father of

Abdissares Abdissares (also spelled Abdissar) was the first king of Adiabene, ruling sometime in the first half of the 2nd-century BC. Scholarship initially considered him to be the ruler of Sophene, due to stylistic similarities between his coins and the on ...

, although the scant historical records have Abdissares ruling before Zariadres. The name written as Dsariadris might be a Greek corruption of the name Bagdassar. A hypothesis is that king Bagdassar was forced to accept rule by king Antiochus III, but stayed as a Satrap, paying tribute until the Battle of Magnesia allowed him to reassert his independence.

was writing 200 years after these events and may not have been accurate. Over a dozen stone boundary markers have been discovered on the territory of modern

from the time of the reign of Artashes with

inscriptions, before their discovery the existence of these stones was attested by

Moses of Chorene Movses Khorenatsi (ca. 410–490s AD; hy, Մովսէս Խորենացի, , also written as ''Movses Xorenac‘i'' and Moses of Khoren, Moses of Chorene, and Moses Chorenensis in Latin sources) was a prominent Armenian historian from the late a ...

. In these inscriptions Artashes claims descent from the Yervanduni (Orontid) Dynasty: ''King Artaxias, the son of Orontid Zariadres.''

References

Sources

* * * * Kings of Sophene Seleucid satraps 188 BC deaths {{Armenia-royal-stub