a center for East–West trade. Early Armenian migrations to Cilicia Cilicia under Tigranes the Great Armenian presence in Cilicia dates back to the first century BC, when under Tigranes the Great, the Kingdom of Armenia expanded and conquered a vast region in the Levant. In 83 BC, the Greek aristocracy of Seleucid Syria, weakened by a bloody civil war, offered their allegiance to the ambitious Armenian king. Tigranes then conquered Phoenicia and Cilicia, effectively ending the Seleucid Empire. The southern border of his domain reached as far as Ptolemais (modern Acre). Many of the inhabitants of conquered cities were sent to the new metropolis of Tigranakert (). At its height, Tigranes' Armenian Empire extended from the Pontic Alps to Mesopotamia, and from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Tigranes invaded as far southeast as the Parthian capital of Ecbatana, located in modern-day western Iran. In 27 BC, the Roman Empire conquered Cilicia and transformed it into one of its eastern provinces. Mass Armenian migration under the Byzantine Empire After the 395 AD partition of the Roman Empire into halves, Cilicia became incorporated into the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire. In the sixth century AD, Armenian families relocated to Byzantine territories. Many served in the Byzantine army as soldiers or as generals, and rose to prominent imperial positions. Cilicia fell to Arab invasions in the seventh century and was entirely incorporated into the Rashidun Caliphate. However, the Caliphate failed to gain a permanent foothold in Anatolia, as Cilicia was reconquered in the year 965 by Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas. The Caliphate's occupation of Cilicia and of other areas in Asia Minor led many Armenians to seek refuge and protection further west in the Byzantine Empire, which created demographic imbalances in the region. In order to better protect their eastern territories after their reconquest, the Byzantines resorted largely to a policy of mass transfer and relocation of native populations within the Empire's borders. Nicephorus thus expelled the Muslims living in Cilicia, and encouraged Christians from Syria and Armenia to settle in the region. Emperor Basil II (976–1025) tried to expand into Armenian Vaspurakan in the east and Arab-held Syria towards the south. As a result of the Byzantine military campaigns, the Armenians spread into Cappadocia, and eastward from Cilicia into the mountainous areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia. The formal annexation of Greater Armenia to the Byzantine Empire in