Hashteank' (Հաշտեանք) was a historic canton of

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

, in the province of

Sophene Sophene ( or , ; ) was a province of the ancient kingdom of Armenia, located in the south-west of the kingdom, and of the Roman Empire. The region lies in what is now southeastern Turkey. History The region that was to become Sophene was part ...

. Called Asthianene () by the Greeks and Romans, it consisted of what is now the

Bingöl Bingöl (; ; ), known as Çapakçur before 1944, is a city in Turkey. It is the seat of Bingöl Province and Bingöl District,Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

. The district of Khordzean (Greco-Roman ''Chorzene'' or ''Chorzanene''), centered on Kiği (Armenian ''Kogoberd''), was generally politically subordinate to Hashteank. Hashteank was primarily a rural district, with larger towns at Bingöl and Genç. The Byzantine fortress of

Citharizum Citharizum () was a town and fortress on the south arm of the Euphrates in the Roman province of Roman Armenia, Armenia III. It was a place of great strength which was built by the emperor Justinian and was the residence of one of the five prefect ...

, which was of great strength and was built by

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

, was in the province.Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Citharizon
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History

In 387, along with that of Balahovit the principality of Hashteank became a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

vassal, extending the Byzantine sphere of influence eastward, with the new border with the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

being the hills east of the Bingöl plain. In either 528 or 529, the military administration of Byzantine Armenia was reorganized. Under the new system, the fortress of Kitharizon (modern Bingöl) in Hashteank became the seat of one of the two "dukes" of Byzantine Armenia, with the other ruling from Martyropolis ( Silvan in

(both were subordinate to the

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers"; : ) was a top-level military command used in the late Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the e ...

ruling in Theodosiopolis, modern

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

References

{{reflist Sophene Early medieval Armenian regions