RB-08 Colchis, Lazica, and Caucasian Iberia

These lands occupied the approaches between the Black Sea, mountain corridors, and the wider Caucasian world. Local rulers, fortresses, ports, trade, and regional populations shaped policy as much as the ambitions of distant emperors. Roman influence could include alliances, garrisons, royal recognition, and military intervention without creating a uniform normal province across the region.

Lazica became a major theatre of sixth-century Roman-Persian competition. The war of 541–562 involved local choices, imperial campaigning, fortifications, and the strategic value of Black Sea access. The resulting arrangements preserved relationships unlike those of an ordinary governor ruling Asia or Egypt.

Caucasian Iberia likewise had its own royal and aristocratic institutions and a changing relationship with Persia and Rome. The use of the name Iberia must be distinguished from the Iberian Peninsula in the West. These borderlands belong in the wider provincial atlas as neighbouring political systems, not as invented Roman provinces inferred from military campaigns or diplomatic claims.