Sanesan is the pagan antagonist of the Albanian conversion narrative. An Arsacid ruler over the Mazkut (Massagetae) and allied Hun and Alan tribes along the Caspian, he received the young bishop Grigoris but, when the bishop denounced the worship of idols, had him bound to a wild horse and dragged to his death on the plain of Vatnean. Faustus of Byzantium goes on to describe Sanesan's subsequent invasion of Armenia. In the sacred history of the Albanian church he embodies the idolatrous power that the martyr's blood ultimately overcomes.