Antiochus is now eager to negotiate on the basis of Rome's previous demands, but the Romans now insist that he first evacuate the region west of the Taurus Mountains.

When he refuses, Antiochus is decisively defeated in winter 190-189 in the Battle of Magnesia near Mt. Sipylus (not far from Sardis), where he fights with a heterogeneous army of seventy thousand men against an army of thirty thousand Romans and their Pergamene allies.

The military skill of Eumenes II of Pergamon contribute substantially to the victory.

Scipio Africanus and his brother have fought Rome's victorious war, but Flamininus has remained active in diplomacy.

One of the terms demanded of Antiochus by the Romans is that Hannibal should be surrendered.

Accounts of Hannibal's subsequent actions vary: either he flees via Crete to the court of King Prusias of Bithynia, or he joins the rebel forces in Armenia, where Artaxias and Zariadres, Antiochus' satraps, have revolted against Seleucid rule.

More than a thousand years have elapsed between the time of the Bronze Age state of Hayasa-Azzi until that of Artaxias I, during which time the Hayasas, the Armens, the people of Nairi and other ethnic elements have integrated, become one nation, speak a common language, and live together in the country that had become known, from the sixth century BCE, as Armenia.

The kingdom of Armenia by the end of the third century BCE comprised around one hundred and twentydynastic domains ruled by nakharars, loosely united under the Orontid kings of Greater and Lesser Armenia.

Even though Alexander the Great had not conquered Armenia, Hellenistic culture has strongly impacted Armenian society.

When Antiochus the Great wrestled Armenia from Orontid rule, he appointed Artaxias as strategos.

Following his monarch's defeat by the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE, Artaxias and his co-strategos Zariadres revolt and, with Roman consent, begin to reign autonomously with the title of king; Zariadres over Sophene/Lesser Armenia and Artaxias over Greater Armenia and According to Strabo and Plutarch, Artaxias also founds the Armenian capital Artashat (Artaxata) with the aid of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who was being sheltered from the Romans within Artaxias’ court when Antiochus III could no longer protect him.

The population of the previous Yervanduni (Orontid) capital of Yervandashat is transferred to Artashat (Artaxata) on the Araks River near Lake Sevan.

Over a dozen stone boundary markers have been discovered on the territory of modern Armenia from the time of the reign of Artashes with Aramaic inscriptions; before their discovery, the existence of these stones was attested by Moses of Chorene.

In these inscriptions, Artaxias claims descent from the Yervanduni (Orontid) Dynasty: King Artaxias, the son of Orontid Zariadres.

Artaxias and Zariadres unite their efforts to enlarge their domains at the expense of neighboring areas; they are considered the creators of historical Armenia.

The Greek geographer Strabo names the capital of Sophene as Carcathiocerta, identified as the now abandoned town-site of Egil on the Tigris river north of Diyarbakir.

However, its largest settlement and only true city is Arsamosata, located further to the north and founded in the third century BCE.

(Much of the site, which is not to be confused with Samosata, now lies submerged under the waters of the Keban dam.

Though the kingdom's rulers are Armenian, the ethnicity of the kingdom is mixed, having a population of Armenian descent and a population of Semitic descent, infiltrating from the South, a situation that will still exist at the time of the Crusades.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes, having mounted a campaign against the Parthians who are threatening the Seleucid empire in the east, recovers the income from that area, and …

…forces Artaxias of Armenia to recognize his suzerainty.

An unsuccessful attempt to end the division of Armenia into an eastern and a western part is made about this time, when Artaxias seeks to suppress his rival in Sophene.