It was a practice among the minstrels of the time to compete with each other in public, and it is related how two minstrels entertained by a Persian prince were led out upon an open grass plot and seated, one facing the other. Five thousand people made a circle around the competitors while the rivals contended in song and verse, riddle and repartee. Each began where the other left off, until finally one failed to perceive the drift of his adversary, and answering at random, the spectators proclaimed him beaten. The triumphant bard was led to the vanquished, whose lyre was taken from him and broken. Robed in a prince's mantle, the victor was taken to the highest seat in the banquet hall.
That the people were the judges of the contest, indicates how well they must have been acquainted with the current folk-songs, legends, and tradition. How generally and frequently the custom of minstrel competition was practiced throughout Armenia is not known, but it certainly is proof, besides Moses' own statements to the same effect, that the national legends and folk-songs were the possession of the common people. And what is more important, this same body of legends, folk-songs, and tradition did more than any other one thing to weld the sentiments of the people into a single national sentiment, which crystallized into a real patriotism, a real loyalty and devotion to any cause that was a national cause, because it was the natural, spontaneous expression of the life and thought of the people, and no mean, artificial thing superimposed from outside. [37]
There are other reasons for giving this period the social importance that I have ascribed to it. The conversion of the people to Christianity about the third century after Christ was achieved in no sentimental fashion, but, as I believe, in a manner in which it alone could have been done, namely, at the point of the sword of their own king, Tiridates, who was converted from paganism to Christianity by Gregory the Illuminator. The traditions in connection with this important event will be told later. Suffice it to say at this point that the whole process of conversion was carried out so thoroughly and completely, that it may be described as a national volte-face, and therefore did not result in the disintegration, civil strife, and social chaos that would unquestionably have been the result had the process been carried out by means of peaceful penetration and propaganda.