In 892 the Caliph confirmed the crown to Sumpad, eldest son of Ashod and the ceremony of coronation was again performed. The treaty of his father was renewed with the Emperor of Constantinople, but his reign proved to be a stormy one through successive invasions of the Persians. At length he was enticed into the power of Yussuf, the Persian, bound in chains and cast into a dark dungeon for a year. From prison he was taken before the walls of a castle which was being besieged. Furious with rage because of the continued resistance, Yussuf caused the most horrible barbarities to be executed upon the unfortunate Sumpad in sight of the beleaguered Armenians. The torture was renewed daily to cause him to deny Christ. Then hourly until death released his unshaken spirit.
Ashod II., surnamed the Iron-hearted, famed for bravery and extraordinary strength, son of Sumpad, now gathered a small body of six hundred men like himself and began to drive out the Persians. Soon he cleared the country of them and in gratitude the Armenians placed him on the throne. But many chiefs refused him their allegiance. They were a restless, jealous set of nobles, and these quarrels among themselves are by all their historians denounced as the chief source of their national weakness.
Nobles and peasants rose in rebellion, and Yussuf taking advantage of the anarchy again brought upon them his fiercest bands.
The former cruelties, and persecutions and barbarities were repeated. Aged men and women were tied together and then cut to pieces, babes were tossed in the air to be caught on the points of the spears or cut in twain with their swords, or dashed to the ground in the presence of their distracted and dishonored mothers.
Religious fanaticism was burning like the fires of hell in the breast of Yussuf and yet these Armenians though ready to fight against each other would die the death of martyrs rather than deny their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Greater horrors followed on the devastation of their fields. Sore and dreadful famine began its cruel work. Thousands died of starvation. Cities and villages were attacked solely for the sake of devouring the slain. Individuals were seized and slain by bands of men driven to madness by their hunger.