Armenia & The Armenians
SECOND PARTITION AND PREDOMINANT PERSIAN CONTROL
Armenia was again partitioned, this time between Byzantium, which
had succeeded Rome in the East, and Persia, about four-fifths of Armenia
passing under Persian control in 307 A.D.
Both Byzantium and Persia governed their respective areas through
native Armenian governers. In spite of divisions and
the weakness of the country, Christianity provided a common bond that
gave rise to a powerful sense of national distinctiveness,
conscientiousness and cohesion, which was subsequently reinforced by the
invention of the Armenian alphabet in 405-406 A.D. by two outstanding
clergymen Sahak Bartev and Mesrob Mashdots; whereupon they almost immediately started on
the sacred task of translating the Bible into Armenian, which was
subsequently named by foreign scholars as the "Queen of Translations".
The first Armenian Bible was printed in Amsterdam in 1666.
The creation of the Armenian alphabet and the translation of the
Bible marked the birth of Armenian literature.
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