Tigranes the Great in the context of "Armenia"

The Kingdom of Greater Armenia or simply Greater Armenia or Armenia Major (Armenian: Մեծ Հայք Mets Hayk; Latin: Armenia Maior), sometimes referred to as the Armenian Empire under Tigranes II, was an Armenian kingdom in the Ancient Near East which existed from 331 BC to 428 AD. Its history is divided into the successive reigns of three royal dynasties: Orontid (331–200 BC), Artaxiad (189 BC – 12 AD), and Arsacid (52–428).

The root of the kingdom lies in the Satrapy of Armenia of the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, which was formed from the territory of Urartu (860–590 BC) after it was conquered by the Medes in 590 BC. The satrapy became a kingdom in 321 BC during the reign of the Orontid dynasty after the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, which was then incorporated as one of the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Seleucid Empire.

Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great, who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria.

Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into a tetrarchy in 4 BC, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. By the late 2nd century AD, the province was divided into Coele Syria and Syria Phoenice.

The Artaxiads (Georgian: არტაშესიანი, romanized: art'ashesiani), a branch of the eponymous dynasty of Armenia, ruled Iberia (ancient Georgia) from c. 90 BC to 30 BC. According to the medieval Georgian chronicles, they acquired the crown of Iberia after the Iberian nobles revolted against their king P’arnajom, of the Pharnabazid dynasty, and petitioned the king of Armenia to send his son, who was married to a Pharnabazid princess, as their new monarch. Both the king of Armenia and his son are referred to in the chronicles as “Arshak”, probably a confusion with Artaxias which seems to be taken as a general term about the Artaxiad kings of Armenia. Professor Cyril Toumanoff identifies the king of Armenia of this account as Artavasdes I (ruled c. 159 BC - c. 115 BC) and considers the newly installed Iberian king, Artaxias I (ruled 90–78 BC), to have been his son. The chronicle goes on to describe a great battle between a combined Iberian-Armenian army against P’arnajom and his followers. In the end, P’arnajom was defeated and killed, and thereafter the Armenian prince was the king of Iberia.

Little is known about the early years of the Iberian Artaxiad rule. They seem to have been under the influence of their Armenian cousins to whom Iberia had relinquished a significant portion of its territory. This association with the Armenian Artaxiads, who were at their peak of power during the reign of Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55 BC), brought about Iberia’s involvement in the Third Mithridatic War between the Pontus-Armenian alliance and Rome (75–65 BC). Plutarch and Licinius Macer state that Iberian contingents featured prominently in the battles of Tigranocerta (69 BC) and Artaxata (68 BC). Even after the surrender of Tigranes to the mercy of Pompey, the Artaxiad king of Iberia Artoces (r. 78–63 BC) continued to offer a stubborn resistance to the invading Romans, but was eventually defeated and forced to plead for peace. This Artoces well known to the Classical sources is apparently the Artag (Artog), son of Arshak/Artaxias, of the Georgian annals which surprisingly omit any mention of the Roman invasion, but instead report the king’s fighting with the “Persians”.

The Artaxiad dynasty (also Artashesian) ruled the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until their overthrow by the Romans in 12 AD. It was founded by Artaxias I, who claimed kinship with the previous ruling dynasty of Armenia, the Orontids. Their realm included Greater Armenia, Sophene and, intermittently, parts of Mesopotamia. Their main enemies were the Romans, the Seleucids and the Parthians, against whom the Armenians conducted multiple wars. Under the Artaxiad king Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55 BC), the Kingdom of Armenia reached its greatest territorial extent, extending for a brief period from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea.

Artavasdes I (also spelled Artawazd/Artavazd) was the Artaxiad king of Armenia from approximately 160 BC to 115 BC. He was the son and successor of Artaxias I. Little is known about his reign. He is the subject of ancient Armenian folk traditions, which are recorded by later Armenian authors.

In c. 120 BC, the Parthian king Mithridates II (r. 124–91 BC) defeated Artavasdes I and made him acknowledge Parthian suzerainty. Artavasdes was forced to give the Parthians Tigranes (the future king Tigranes the Great) as a hostage, who was either his son or nephew.

The Military campaigns of Tigranes the Great constituted offensives by Tigranes the Great, King of Armenia, against client kingdoms of the Roman Republic and Parthian Empire. His conquests extended the realm from the Caspian Sea in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, encompassing territories such as Syria, Phoenicia, and parts of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). He built a new capital Tigranocerta and populated it with people deported from Cappadocia. His initial invasions of Cappadocia drew the attention of the Roman Republic and after being defeated in two separate campaigns, Tigranes was allowed to keep Armenia as a client kingdom of Rome while paying an indemnity of 6,000 talents and relinquishing all his conquests.

Cleopatra of Pontus (Ancient Greek: Κλεοπάτρα; 110 BC – after 58 BC) was a Pontian princess and a queen consort of Armenia.

She was one of the daughters of King Mithridates VI of Pontus and Queen Laodice. Cleopatra is sometimes known as Cleopatra the Elder, to distinguish her from her sister of the same name and was born and raised in the Kingdom of Pontus. She was the wife of the Armenian King Tigranes the Great.