Kingdom of Lazica

Overview

The Kingdom of Lazica (Egrisi in Georgian) was a western Georgian/Colchian kingdom on the Black Sea coast, established (per tradition) in 131 AD under King Malassas and long a Roman/Byzantine vassal. King Tzath I was baptized at Constantinople under Emperor Justin I around 522/523, becoming the first Christian king of Lazica. Lazica was the theater of the Lazic War (541–562), a protracted struggle between the Byzantine Empire and Sasanian Persia for control of the kingdom (narrated by Procopius and Agathias), ended by the Fifty-Year Peace of 562 (Peace of Dara), under which Byzantium paid Persia annual tribute in return for recognition of Lazica as a Byzantine vassal; the war's outcome is generally described as indecisive. Lazica declined in the 7th century, with later rulers styled "patricius of Lazica" (e.g., Grigor, and Sergius who revolted and accepted Arab suzerainty), and was disestablished around 697.

Abasgia/Abkhazia to the north was a Byzantine-dependent principality (c. 510–767), ruled by hereditary archons acting as viceroys from the capital Anacopia. Around the 770s, Leon II — reportedly the maternal grandson of the Khazar khagan — acquired Lazica by dynastic union, and around 778 (some sources c. 786) he threw off Byzantine control with Khazar help, assumed the title "King of the Abkhazians," united Abasgia and Lazica into eight duchies, and transferred his capital to Kutaisi. The Kingdom of Abkhazia flourished (Georgian became its language of literacy and church), reaching a zenith under George II (923–957). Its rulers included Leon II, Theodosius II, Demetrius II, George I, Bagrat I, Constantine III, George II, Leon III, Demetrius III, Theodosius III the Blind, and finally Bagrat II of Abkhazia (= Bagrat III of Georgia), under whom Abkhazia was merged into the unified Kingdom of Georgia in 1008.

Contested dates

the Abkhazian independence/capital shift is variously dated c. 778 or c. 786, and Leon II's reign given as 778–828 or 780–820.