Ara the Beautiful

Ara the Beautiful is a legendary king of Armenia, the son of Aram and a descendant of Hayk.¹² His story is told by Movses Khorenatsi.¹

Shamiram, the queen of Assyria and the widow of King Ninos, fell in love with Ara. He refused her and returned home, and she sent her army after him. Her soldiers had orders to spare him, but he was killed in the battle by a stray arrow.¹³ She had his body placed in an upper room of her palace so that her gods, the aralezk, supernatural beings in the form of dogs, might lick him back to life. They did not come, and in Khorenatsi’s account the attempt failed.¹³ Shamiram then built a city near Lake Van (see Van).³

The belief lasted long. In the fourth century the Armenians still believed that gods might revive slain heroes whose bodies were left in towers. When the body of the general Mushegh Mamikonian was left that way, it decayed and was buried.¹