CARANI´TIS
CARANI´TIS (
Καρηνῖτις,
Strab. xi. p.528;
Καρανῖτις,
Strab. xii. p.560;
Plin. Nat. 5.20. s. 24), a canton of Upper Armenia, added by Artaxias to his dominions.
This district is at the foot of the mountains which separated the Roman from the Persian Armenia. Carana (
Κάρανα, now
Erzrúm or
Garen)) was the capital of this district. (
Strab. xii. p.560.)
It was afterwards called Theodosiopolis, which was given it in honour of the emperor Theodosius the. Younger by Anatolius, his general in the East, A.D. 416. (Procop.
de Aedif. 3.5; Le Beau,
Bas Empire, vol. v. p. 446.)
It was for a long time subject to the Byzantine emperors, who considered it these most important fortress of Armenia. (Procop.
B. P. 1.10, 17; Const. Porph.
de Adm. Imp. 100.46; Cedren. vol. i. pp. 324, 463.) About the middle of the 11th century it received the name of
Arze-el-Rúm, contracted into
Arzrúm or
Erzrúm. (St. Martin,
Mém. sur l'Armenie, vol. i. p. 67; Ritter,
Erdkunde, vol. x. pp. 81, 271.)
It owed its name to the circumstance that when ARZEK was taken by the Seljuk Turks, A.D. 1049, the inhabitants of that place, which, from its long subjection to the Romans, had received the epithet of
Rúm, retired to Theodosiopolis, and gave it the name of their former abode. (St. Martin,
l.c.)
[
E.B.J]
