Artaxiads

After 200 BCE, parts of Armenia became incorporated in the Seleucid Empire, but the country regained its independence soon in the form of two small kingdoms, west and east of the Euphrates. The western kingdom was known as Lesser Armenia and ruled by king Zariadris; the other state was called Greater Armenia and ruled by Zariadris' son Artaxias (r.189-164), the first king of the Artaxiad dynasty.

The main city of Armenia was, in this age, Artaxata; a second capital was founded by Tigranes II the Great, under whose rule the kingdom temporarily extended from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.

The dynasty lost control of Armenia in the course of the first half of the first century CE, with rulers being appointed from Media Atropatane (Ariobarzanes, Artavasdes III), Pontus (Artaxias III), Parthia (Arsaces), and finally Iberia (Mithridates, Rhadamistus). After the Iberian kings, the Arsacid dynasty (originally from Parthia) reorganized the country and maintained its independence between Parthia in the south and the Roman Empire in the west.