Thoros III
King of Armenia

Thoros III or Toros III (Armenian: Թորոս Երրորդ, same as Theodore; c. 1271 – 23 July 1298) was king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, ruling from 1293 to 1296. He was the son of Leo II of Armenia and Kyranna de Lampron, and was part of the House of Lampron. In 1293 his brother Hethum II abdicated in his favour; however, Thoros recalled Hethum to the throne as co-ruler in 1295. The two brought their sister Rita of Armenia to Constantinople to marry the Byzantine emperor Michael IX Palaiologos in 1296, but were imprisoned upon their return in Bardzrberd by their brother Sempad, who had usurped the throne in their absence. Thoros was murdered, strangled to death on 23 July 1298, in Bardzrberd by Oshin, Marshal of Armenia, on Sempad's orders.
Family
Thoros was married twice; his first marriage, to Margaret of Lusignan (ca 1276–1296, Armenia) (the daughter of King Hugh III of Cyprus), took place on 9 January 1288. His only son, by his first marriage, was Leo III of Armenia, who became heir to his uncle Hethum II. Leo ruled from 1303 to 1307, but was murdered along with his uncle by the Mongol general Bilarghu at a feast.
References
Sources
Boase, T. S. R. (1978). The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Thoros III” as king of Armenia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as king of Armenia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q888141. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1271, 1298, 1293 and 1296.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thoros III” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.