Arzanene
Ἀρζανηνή
Arzanene (Ἀρζανηνή, also Ἀρξάνη, Procop. de Aedif. 3.2), a province in the S. of Armenia, situated on the left bank of the Tigris, extending to the E. as far as the valley of Bitlís, and bounded on the S. and W. by Mesopotamia. It derived its name from the lake Arsene, or the town Arzen, situated on this lake. Its name frequently occurs in the writers of the Lower Empire. (Eutrop. 6.7; Amm. Marc. 25.7, 9; Procop. B. Pers. 1.8.) Ptolemy calls the district Thospitis (Θωσπῖτις, 5.13.18), a name which he also gives to the lake Arsene (5.13.7). The district Arrhene in Pliny (6.31) is probably the same as Arzanene.
This province was the subject and the theatre of continual wars between the emperors of Constantinople and the kings of Persia. It is now comprehended in the Pashalik of Dyár Bekr.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.