History of Armenia, by Father Michael Chamich; from B. C. 2247 to ...

64 HISTORY OF ARMENIA.
Black Sea to commemorate his victory. This
prince had a spear with a round sharp head,
which had a peculiar property from the circumstance
of its having been dipped in the blood of
certain venomous reptiles.
As he was walking
on the shore of the Black Sea, he threw this
spear at the statue before-mentioned, when,
strange to relate, it entered the pedestal with
as much ease as if it had been clay. The
pedestal was an immense mass of rock shaped
like a mill-stone. The statue of which we speak
was worshipped for a considerable time by the
people of Pontus, who regarded it as the work
of the gods. On a fresh rupture breaking out
between them and Artaces, the son of Arsaces,
they threw it into the sea.
3877; Arsaces was extremely bigoted in relioion
5076. , . , . .
•
1
and HI his reign commenced an unjust persecution
of the Jews. Observing that the Bagratians,
of whose origin the reader is already aware,
did not worship the idols of the country, he
put two of them to death, and issued a proclamation
by which they were forbidden all
intercourse with women, unless they bound
themselves by oath not to circumcise their
children and to neglect the observance of their
sabbath. The poor Bagratians having no hopes
of milder usage if they contested the point,
compHed with this most unjust decree, but did