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The Armenian warrior of the early fourth century is pictured by Phaustos as the man of the elite class "accustomed to the fatigue of combats, armed in all places, — lances, swords and hatchets, expert archers whose strokes were sure. The attack of such heavy cavalrymen is said to have been irresistible. "Ashot the Great spread terror," declares Ardzruni, "his blow was so impetuous that he overthrew in death more horsemen together with their mounts, than those whom he slaughtered by sword. No enemy, not one, was capable of resisting him."

The historian Aristakes of Lastivert, narrating the battle of Manazkert waged between the Byzantines and Seljuk Turks, in 1070, remarks: "The Armenian soldiers of the Emperor Diogenes Romanos, although inwardly detached from the party of the emperor, p323nevertheless, preferred death, so that they may leave the precious remembrance of loyalty and courage."