Battle of Lake Sevan (629–630)

On the shore of Lake Sevan in Armenia, the vanguard of the Göktürk army of the north destroyed a Persian army of ten thousand men.^[1] A prince called Čorpan Tarxan commanded the vanguard. Honah, the leader of the troop of Arab horse, led the Persians.^[1] The Göktürks feigned flight. They drew the Persians into an ambush and surrounded them. None escaped.^[2] The battle is known from the Armenian history of the Albanians. That history dates it to the second year of the Persian king Artashir III.^[3] It was the last victory of the Caucasus campaign.

Background

After the fall of Tiflis, the army of the north stayed in the Caucasus.^[4] The Armenian history reports that in the second year of Artashir the power of the prince of the north grew and spread fear over the earth.^[3] He sent officials to the craftsmen in gold and silver, iron and copper. He took heavy tribute from the merchants and from the fishers of the Kur and the Araxes.^[3] He collected didrachms according to the cadastre of the Persian kingdom.^[3] Then he decided to overrun Armenia and its neighbours.^[3] That year ran from 17 June 629 to 27 April 630.^[5]

He chose about three thousand warriors and a prince of theirs called Čorpan Tarxan, a bold and bloodthirsty man. He sent them ahead to prepare a safe road and to gather news of the Persian general.^[3] Tarxan is the Göktürk title tarkhan.^[5] The prince himself followed a short distance behind with his whole army.^[3] In another version, Börü Shad, as the yabgu’s deputy, sends Čorpan Tarxan on a campaign into the eastern Caucasus.^[6] In that account his troops crossed the Armenian highlands and reached the river Aras. They secured all the land south of it, so that the river became the frontier between the Göktürks and the Sasanians.^[6]

The Persian answer

When the vanguard reached Armenia, its commander learned that the Persian general was marching against him. He lay in ambush and watched the road.^[3] The general was Shahrbaraz, called Sahrvaraz in the Armenian text. In a speech to his troops he proposed that they depose the Sasanian house and make him king.^[3] He said that the Khazars, knowing Persia to be depopulated, had set their hearts on the glories of the land of the Aryans.^[2] He ordered Honah to choose ten thousand men and march against them.^[2] They were not to choose a battlefield or draw their swords. They were to trample the enemy under the hooves of their horses and to call the field “the grave of the enemies”.^[2] The Persian counter-attack is put at ten thousand horsemen.^[6]

The battle

The Göktürks learned of Honah’s approach. They laid an ambush on the road, with half their army drawn up to meet him.^[2] When the two armies clashed, the Göktürks at once took flight.^[2] Then they reappeared on both flanks and surrounded the Persians on the banks of the lake of Getam, that is Lake Sevan.^[2] They spared not one of them. No man was left to carry the news.^[2] The same manoeuvre has also been described as a tactical retreat into Armenia that drew the Persians into a trap.^[6]

The victors plundered the dead. They shared the ornaments of the horses, the lances, the gilded swords and the robes woven by the Greeks.^[7] By their custom they slit the ears and nostrils of the finest horses and cut their manes, forelocks and tails, so that the horses looked like pack-mules.^[7]

Aftermath

The army of the north advanced through the passes of Armenia, Georgia and Albania.^[7] There news came from Jebu Xak’an to his son Šat’: “Brigands have fallen upon me, and you shall never see my face again.”^[7] He told his son not to stop to destroy the people with him. He was to escape before they learned what had happened.^[7] Elsewhere the Göktürks withdraw to the steppe because Tong Yabgu had been murdered, by his uncle or by his own son.^[6]

The battle by the lake was the last Göktürk victory in the Caucasus. Within months of it, the army that had broken the Caspian gates went home.

References

^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 104–105
^ a b c d e f g h Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 105
^ a b c d e f g h i Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 104
^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 95
^ a b Dowsett 1961, p. 104
^ a b c d e Yavuz 2025, p. 371
^ a b c d e Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 106

Sources

Movsēs Dasxurancʿi

Literature

Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)