Orontid Dynasty

The Orontid Dynasty (also known by their native name, Yervanduni (Armenian: Երվանդունիներ, Persian: اروندی‎) was a hereditary Armenian dynasty and the rulers of the successor state to the Iron Age kingdom of Ararat. The Orontids established their supremacy over Armenia around the time of the Scythian and Median invasion in the sixth century BC.

Of probable Iranian origin, members of the dynasty ruled Armenia intermittently during the period spanning the sixth century to at least the second century BC, first as client kings or satraps of the Median and Achaemenid empires who established an independent kingdom after the collapse of the Achaemenid empire, and later as kings of Sophene and Commagene who eventually succumbed to the Roman Empire.