Whose profession
of Christianity there is indeed (as has been indicated - supra) no real
evidence; who could not be said to have made an attack upon any pair of
brother Kings of the Persians and the Medes, nor to have captured Ecbatana
(a city, whatever its identity, of Media); who could never have had any
intention of coming to Jerusalem; and whose geographical position in no
way suggested the mention of Armenia.
Professor Bruun thinks he finds a warrior much better answering to the
indications in the Georgian prince John Orbelian, the general-in-chief
under several successive Kings of Georgia in that age.
At the time when the Gur-Khan defeated Sanjar the real brothers of the
latter had been long dead; Sanjar had withdrawn from interference with the
affairs of Western Persia; and Hamadan (if this is to be regarded as
Ecbatana) was no residence of his. But it was the residence of Sanjar's
nephew Mas'ud, in whose hands was now the dominion of Western Persia;
whilst Mas'ud's nephew, Daud, held Media, i.e. Azerbeijan, Arran, and
Armenia. It is in these two princes that Professor Bruun sees the
Samiardi fratres of the German chronicler.
Again the expression "extreme Orient" is to be interpreted by local usage.
And with the people of Little Armenia, through whom probably such
intelligence reached the Bishop of Gabala, the expression the East
signified specifically Great Armenia (which was then a part of the kingdom
of Georgia and Abkhasia), as Dulaurier has stated.[3]
It is true that the Georgians were not really Nestorians, but followers of
the Greek Church. It was the fact, however, that in general, the
Armenians, whom the Greeks accused of following the Jacobite errors,
retorted upon members of the Greek Church with the reproach of the
opposite heresy of Nestorianism. And the attribution of Nestorianism to a
Georgian Prince is, like the expression "extreme East," an indication of
the Armenian channel through which the story came.
The intention to march to the aid of the Christians in Palestine is more
like the act of a Georgian General than that of a Karacathayan Khan; and
there are in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem several indications
of the proposal at least of Georgian assistance.
The personage in question is said to have come from the country of the
Magi, from whom he was descended. But these have frequently been supposed
to come from Great Armenia. E.g. Friar Jordanus says they came from
Moghan.[4]
The name Ecbatana has been so variously applied that it was likely to
lead to ambiguities. But it so happens that, in a previous passage of his
History, Bishop Otto of Freisingen, in rehearsing some Oriental
information gathered apparently from the same Bishop of Gabala, has shown
what was the place that he had been taught to identify with Ecbatana, viz.
the old Armenian city of ANI.[5] Now this city was captured from the
Turks, on behalf of the King of Georgia, David the Restorer, by his great
sbasalar,[6] John Orbelian, in 1123-24.
