Aram vardanyan

^{248 ARAM VARDANYAN}

for keeping their control over the most important centers of their realm but that struggle was not always successful. The areas around ^{Dvin still remained under} Sallarid rule, By 368 the Shaddadids had also seized Barda‘a and neighbouring

areas as Sallarid

far as Shamkar.'* 1f Mii Ibrahim from 362 until 373.

is right Ardabil was in the hands ^{of the} It is unclear whether the general Sharmazan

^{ibn Mishaki concluded a peace with Ibrahimor just entered his service. Matthew of} Edessa (Mat'eos Uthaec’i) mentions that in the ^{year 424 of the Armenian era (AE)}
(AD 975/6, AH 364/5) the ruler of Andzevacik', Derenik, took the title of sparapet (commander) from the Prince of Princes of Vaspurakan Ap! Gharip and bestowed
it on a certain Sargis. Ap! Gharip was offended and asked the ‘foreigners’ (i.e. the

Edesa relates that Abi alHayj soo rleased Derenik ut kept him ith him and
Rawwéidids) for help.” They attacked Derenik as he was having a feast, killing many of his soldiers and imprisoning him in a fortress ^{in the town of Her. Matthew of} used sto ‘play a ball (game) -with ahim’ n(in ethe text: fp fun, bqGinhG). Ap! wGharip, who
now regretted his ‘crime’, organized the escape of Dere When Abi al-Hayja
was playing ball near the village of Bak, in the gavaF of Cuai* in Vaspurakan, Apl Gharip attacked Abi al-Hayja who escaped to Her though manyof his soldiers were killed.” On this evidence Hratch Bartikian concluded that by the time of Derenik’s

imprisonment the feudal lords lying on the shores of the Lake
of the towns of Xoy (Khiiy) and Salmas (Salmast) of Urmiya had become subject to Rawwadid rule.

The 370s marked the apogee of the Rawwadid state. Between 373 and 377 they established their control over the whole of Adharbayjan. According to Miinajjim Bagi,
after the death of the Sallarid Ibrahim in 373 the Rawwadids captured Ardabil.” The
next year they also captured the Sallarid, Marzuban ibn Isma‘Tl ibn Wahsiidan, and annexed the district of Miyana, the last outpost of Sallarid power in Adharbayjan. The Sallrids preserved their ancestral ^{domains in Tarm for a while, but in 379 the Buyid} Fakhr al-daula seized the fortress of Shamirin.* At the same time the Rawwiidids
were conducting a struggle with both the Armenian princes of Vaspurakan and Tayk" and the ruler of Goltn and Naxéavan, Abii Dulaf, for possession of Dvin. In 431 AE (AD 982/3, AH 371/2) the king of Kars, MuSet (d. 984), being involved in a war
with his brother the Bagratid King Smbat II (AD 977-90), ‘sent for Delmastan Abu


“Leedv, Markov and Koifinan, Monemoe del, p.

®

In

medieval

times

there

was

a

district

of

the

same

name,

but

here

another
*9 In ^bthe ^etext: ‘uyjjuiqgh’ literally ‘foreigner’ but ^ohere, ^8.the Rawwadids.

the

Xoy
is involved, (R. Hewsen, “Armenia according to the ASxarhae'aye"", Revue des ^aEnedes Armeniennes 2

95), pp. 31-42.

town of Her) and bordered Araxes in the North,
⁽¹4 ⁶The gava ⁹of Cui lay to the east and north-east af the district of Her (not to be confused with the


164,

p.

History,

Caucasian

Minorsky,

*
® Matthew of Edessa, The Chronologyof MattofhEdeeswsa (Yerevan, 1991), edited by H, Bartikian, p. 38 (in Armenian).


amah a volme o Oriental Stdis Presented t wrd G Brown (Cambridge, 1922), p. 252
_n* C, _: Muart, _u‘Les _f Mosifirides _ude _e|'Adherbuidjan’, _{o Ed}in_aT.W. _. Amold _eand R.A, Nicholson (eds), Ajab-