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[German version] M. III, king of Iberia [1] in Caucasia, sent an embassy by Constantius [2] II in 360/61 to recruit him to the Roman side against the Persians (Amm. Marc. 21,6,8). Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography W. Enßlin, s.v. M., RE 15, 1028 PLRE 1, 598.

[German version] Georgian 'ruler fortress' (Kartlis Cḫovreba p. 17; 33 et passim) [1]. Rock-cut city (9.5 ha) in Iberia [1], about 20 km to the east of Gori on the northern bank of the Cyrus [5] (1st millennium BC to 18th cent. AD). In the Roman Imperial period U. was expanded into a city with ditches and clay-brick walls on a stone foundation; the cave sites were partly inspired by the Hellenistic rock-cut architecture of Asia Minor. A system of streets with drainage channels and cisterns survives. The city was significant in the Georgian Middle Ages. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jen…

[German version] (Γυηνός; Gyēnós). Town in the  Colchis (Ps.-Scyl. 81). Now linked with the ancient settlement (6th cent. BC ─ 6th cent. AD) near Očamčire on the Georgian Pontus coast, discovered in 1935/6 during the construction of the harbour. The ancient finding points to three man-made hills surrounded by ditches with remains of wooden architecture with a pounded clay floor; apart from Colchic ceramics, fragments of ancient Ionian and Attic red-figured ceramics as well as black-glazed ceramics were found. Worthy of mention as the latest building is a hall church with pastophoria ( o…

[German version] Κάσπιον ὄρος; Káspion óros is, according to Eratosthenes (in Str. 11,2,15), the indigenous name of the Caucasus; according to Ptol. 5,13,4 it is the mountain range separating Armenia from the Parthian province of Media (modern Talyš mountains, the border between Azerbaijan and Iran). In Mela 1,109 and Plin. HN 5,99, the Caspii montes are an independent mountain range, alongside the Caucasus, probably the Elburz mountain range with Mt. Demavend (5670 m). According to Amm. Marc. 23,6,74, they formed the northern border of the Persian empire. Plontke-Lüning, Annegre…

(Παρικάνιοι; Parikánioi). [German version] [1] People in the Fergana region The P. are mentioned together with the Orthocorybantii in the list of peoples who had to pay tributes to Artaxerxes [1] I in Hdt. 3,92; it is assumed that their settlement area was in the Fergana region in modern Afghanistan. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) [German version] [2] People with a main town of Paricane in Persis In Hecat. FGrH 1 F 282, the P. are a people with a main town of Paricane in Persis; it is probably these P., to whom Hdt. 3,94 refers, assigning them to a nomós together with the Asiatic Aethiopia…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Limes (Ἁρμοζική; Harmozikḗ Str. 11,3,5; Ἀρμάκτικα; Harmáktika Ptol. 5,11,3; 8,19,4; Hermastis iuxta Cyrum Plin. HN 6,29; Armastika Geogr. Rav. 2,8; Georgian Armaziḫe, ‘fortress of the Armazi’). Residence of the kings of the Caucasian  Iberia on the Bagineti hill in modern Mccheta south opposite the confluence of the  Aragus into the  Cyrus; conquered by Pompey in 65 BC. Excavations since 1937 have revealed buildings of Hellenistic and Roman times: fortress wall (clay brick wall on a stone block foun…

[German version] (Φασιανοί; Phasianoí, Xen. An. 4,6,5), a tribe mentioned together with the Chalybes and Taochi that lived on the Phasis, a river that should not be identified with the Phasis in Colchis (modern Rioni/ Georgia) but with the modern Pasinsu (Armenian Basean) that flows into the Araxes [1]/ Aras at Pasinler. The region known as Pasean in Armenian and Basiani in Georgian corresponds approximately to the modern region of Basen/Pasen with the city of Pasinler, c. 60 km east of Erzurum in north-eastern Turkey. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography W.E.D. Allen, A His…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids (Procop. Goth. 4,13 f.; Agath. 2,22 III 5 f.). Heavily fortified capital city of Lazica, on the Doconus (Georgian Techuri) north of the  Phasis; could not be taken in the Byzantine-Persian wars of 550-55; destroyed by the Arabs in the 9th cent. The ruins are in West Georgia in the place today called Nokalakevi (‘Old City’): wall with fortification, palace, thermae, basilica, acropolis. Extensive excavations. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography A. M. Schneider, in: Forsch. und Fortschritte 7, …

[German version] (Ἡνίοχοι/ Heníochoi, Ps.-Scyl. 71). In the 5th cent. BC, a large group of tribes on the Caucasian coast of the Pontus - then a densely wooded area with many inlets - between the Zygi and the Achaeans in the north and the San(n)igae in the south.  Pityus/Picunda was founded in the territory of the H. The H. raised cattle and engaged in piracy with light boats (Str. 11,2,14) and were subjugated towards the end of the 4th cent. BC by the Bosporan king  Eumelus [4], who campaigned agai…

[German version] (Σευσάμορα/Σεισάμορα; Seusámora/ Seisámora). One of three cities of Iberia in the Caucasus mentioned by name in Str. 11,3,5; a fortress on the route through the valley of the Aragus (modern Aragvi) to the Portae Caucasiae (modern Dariali), near the modern town of Cicamuri in Georgia. Excavations: Hellenistic city wall and buildings with ashlar foundations (with cramp insets), clay brick walls above and tiled roofs. Harmozice; Iberia [1] Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography O. Lordkipanidze, Das alte Georgien (Kolchis und Iberien) in Strabons …

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Pontos Euxeinos | Scythae | Colonization | Patricius Military colony in the area of the  Sindi in the north-west Pontus Euxinus (Str. 11,2,10; Steph. Byz. s.v. Γοργιπία; civitas Sindica, Plin. HN 6,1) in the place of modern Anapa. Founded in the late 6th cent. BC [1. 7], the city had a harbour (originally Σινδική, Σινδικὸς λιμήν; Sindikḗ, Sindikòs limḗn, Ps.-Scymn. 888f.; Peripl. m. Eux. 65; Arr. Peripl. p. eux. 29) and was officially named after the Spartocid Gorgippus after its integration into the Bosporus Kingdom (  Regnum …

[German version] (Σάννοι; Sánnoi). In Str. 12,3,18 a term for the tribe formerly called Macrones, to the southwest of Trapezus. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography O. Lordkipanidze, Das alte Georgien in Strabons Geographie, 1996, 158-163.

[German version] (Μεστλῆτα; Mestlêta, Ptol. 5,10,8; Agathias Scholastikos 2,22,5: Μεσχιθά, Georgian in Kartlis Cxovreba [1]: Mceta). Capital of Caucasian Iberia [1] from the 3rd cent. BC until the end of the 5th cent. AD (elevation of Tbilisi to capital by Vaxtang Gorgasal) located at the confluence of the Aragus and the Cyrus [5]. Starting-point of the road to the Portae Caucasiae ( Kaukasiai Pylai), after Christianization in the 4th cent. seat of the head of the Georgian Church. The city was surrounded by walls, which were reinforced by Vespasian in …

[German version] The country between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, with the Great  Caucasus, was settled from the 4th millennium BC onwards and until today is distinctively polyethnic. From the late 3rd millennium onwards, C. became a centre of  bronze metallurgy for the Near Easter; at the end of the 2nd millennium beginning of  iron metallurgy. In the 9th-6th cents. C. was affected by the expansion of the  Urarṭu empire; in northern C. lived  Scythian and  Sarmatian tribes. From the 6th cen…

[German version] (Σοάνες/ Soánes, Latin Suani). First mentioned in Str. 11,2,14; 11,2,19, which locates them in the western Caucasus together with the Phtheirophagi ('fir-cone eaters') above the Colchi (Colchis) and counts them among the tribes who trade in Dioscurias; they were a war-like people who extracted gold from mountain streams (as also in Plin. HN 6,14; 6,30). In the 6th cent. AD the S. came under the sovereignty of Lazica (Procop. Goth 4,16,14; Agathias 4,30; Men. Protektor fr. 3 [1. 177,1…

[German version] (Procop. Aed. 3,3; Chorzianene, Procop. Pers. 2,24; Armenian: Xorjean/Xorjayn). Region in Armenia, south of the upper course of the Euphrates on the river Gayl, modern Perisuyu, with Koloberd the capital. Modern Kiĝi in the centre of the Karagöl Daĝları south-west of Theodosiopolis (Erzurum), eastern Turkey. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography R. H. Hewsen (ed.), The Geography of Ananias of Širak, 1991, 19, 154f.

[German version] River (Str. 11,3; 11,2; Olazanes, Plin. HN 6,29) that springs from the southern slopes of the central Caucasus mountains and flowed into the  Cyrus (Georgian: Alasani). According to Pliny, the border between  Iberia and  Albania [1]. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena)

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Xenophon (Γυμνιάς; Gymniás, Xen. An. 4,7,19). Large, heavily populated and affluent town of the Skythēnoí on the left bank of the Harpasus (modern Çoruh su), at the location of or near modern Bayburt. Plontke-Lüning, Annegret (Jena) Bibliography O. Lendle, Kommentar zu Xenophons Anabasis, 1995, 270-272.

[German version] [1] Country in the centre of southern Caucasia (Ἰβηρία; Ibēría, Str. 11,3,1-6; Ptol. 5,10,1-2; Georgian Kʿartʿli, Parthian Virčan, Armenian Virkʿ). Country in the centre of southern Caucasia, bordering on the Greater  Caucasus in the north, the Likh Range in the west which runs north-south from the Greater to the Lesser Caucasus, the Kura-Aras Lowland in the east and the Lesser Caucasus in the south, especially the southern and western frontiers being fluid; approximately modern eastern Georgia. Unt…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Pontos Euxeinos | Christianity | Commerce | Colonization | Patricius (Πιτυοῦς/ Pityoûs: Str. 11,2,14; Ptol. 5,8,10; 5,9,1; Patrum Nicaenorum nomina p. LXII, 113 Gelzer; Zos. 1,32; Theod. Hist. eccl. 9,5,35; Suda 1670; Πιτιῦς/ Pitiûs: Procop. Pers. 2,29,18; Procop. Goth. 8,4,1-6; Procop. Aed. 3,7,8; Pityus: Plin. HN 6,16; Pithiae: Not. Dign. Or. 18,32). Identified with Picunda/Bičvinta in the republic of Abchasia/Georgia (Roman and early Byzantine fort), yet the identification of the town, f…