Thoros II of Armenia
Thoros II of Armenia (died
1169) was prince of the
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, ruling from
1140 to
1169. He was the son of
Leo I of Armenia by his unknow second wife, possibly armenian.
He, his younger brother Roupen, and his father had all been taken into captivity in
Constantinople in
1138, where his father died in
1140, and Roupen was murdered in
1141. However, Thoros contrived to escape and return to Cilicia in
1145. There he retook
Vahka from the
Byzantines, and gradually recovered his patrimony from them. In
1151, he captured
Mamistra and
Til Hamdoun. This aroused the
Emperor Manuel, who dispatched an army in
1152 under his cousin the Dux
Andronicus to retake Mamistra. The army included a number of the local Armenian barons, rivals of the Rupenides. Thoros routed the besiegers with a night sally: Sempad, the lord of
Barbaron was killed in the fighting, and his brother Oshin II, lord of
Lampron, Basil, lord of
Partzerpert, and Tigran, lord of
Prakan were captured. Oshin gave his son Hethum as a surety for half of his ransom; he was well-received at the court of Thoros, and Thoros proposed to have him knighted and married to one of his daughters, which proposal was accepted.
The Byzantines next incited an invasion by
Masu'd, the
Seljuk sultan of Rüm in
1153. Thoros was able to placate Mas'ud by acknowledging him as his overlord, but Mas'ud attempted to invade Cilicia again in
1154. While besieging
Anazarbus, a raiding detachment sent against
Antioch was ambushed and destroyed in the
Syrian Gates by the
Knights Templars. Hearing the news, the demoralized Seljuk army abandoned the siege. A siege of Til Hamdoun by the Seljuks in
1155 was also unsuccessful. With the accession of
Kilij Arslan II, a peace prevailed between the two states. Thoros' impetuous half-brother
Stephen raided the Seljuk territory around Kokison in
1157 and unsuccessfully attempted to take
Maraş; but Thoros returned Kokison to Kilij Arslan and the peace remained untroubled.
Around this time, Thoros became embroiled in a dispute with
Raynald of Chatillon over the castle of
Bagras, in the borderlands between
Armenia and
Antioch. Built by the Knights Templars, it had been seized by the Byzantines and subsequently recaptured by the Armenians. The Emperor Manuel had engaged Raynald to recover it for him, but Raynald was defeated in a sharp battle near
Alexandretta. Thoros ultimately returned the castle to the Templars, in return for a covenant of perpetual alliance; but the immediate consequence was that Manuel refused to compensate Raynald for his undertaking. Incensed, Raynald joined forces with Thoros, and the two launched a freebooting raid on Byzantine
Cyprus, attended with great cruelty.
The wrathful Manuel determined to punish the authors of this outrage, and in
1158, he led a great army into Cilicia and overran the Mediterranean littoral. Thoros fled into the mountain fastness of Dajikikar. Through the mediation of
Baldwin III of Jerusalem, he escaped a second captivity by the Byzantines, but was forced to do homage to the Emperor for his domains. A few years later, however,
Andronicus Euphorbenus, the Byzantine governor of
Tarsus, invited Marshal Stephen to a banquet and then had him murdered, in revenge for his earlier raids on Byzantine territory. Thoros and his half-brother
Mleh responded with a general massacre of the Greeks within their dominions, and a new war with the Byzantines was only averted by the diplomatic efforts of
Amalric I of Jerusalem.
The last years of Thoros' reign were troubled by an attempt on his life by Mleh. It was discovered by Thoros before it could be carried out; Mleh was deprived of much of his wealth and authority, and left Armenia for Antioch, and subsequently,
Aleppo to join the service of
Nur ad-Din. Shortly before his death in
1169, Thoros retired to a monastery and left the throne to his minor son
Ruben II, under the regency of his nephew Thomas.
He had at least three children:
Ruben II, a daughter who married Hethum III of Lampron, and a daughter who married the Emperor of
Cyprus.
*
Smbat Sparapet's Chronicle*
The Barony of Cilician Armenia (Kurkjian's History of Armenia, Ch. 27)
* T.S.R. Boase, editor.
The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia. Scottish Academic Press, 1978.
