The founder of the Bagratidian or Bagratian race is said to have been a Jew, brought by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, who went and settled in Armenia under Rhatch, of the Haikan dynasty, some six centuries before Christ.  Their name came to them from Pakrat or Bagrat, to whom Vagharshak (Valarsaces), first of the Arsacidae, gave the hereditary dignity of "Asbed" or knight.  Under the Arsacidae, the Bagratide princes were already very powerful; and afterwards they still increased in importance.  Their influence spread all over Armenia, but it concentrated itself especially towards the interior, under the chain of Ararat, and round the sources of the Euphrates, of the Chorok, and of the Araxes.  Ashod, the son of Symbat, who suffered martyrdom at the hands of the ferocious Buga, the last of the Osdigans (A.D. 856), lived at first in Kars, then in Eraskavors, the present Shiragvan, then in Ani, all three cities in the province of Ararat.  But on his taking the title of "prince," he removed to Tovin.  Ashod III., however, removed the seat of his government thence back to Ani, about A.D. 961. (The Life and Times of S. Gregory the Illuminator, Malan, 1868)