People
Lazi
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The Lazi were a Kartvelian people who, in the first century AD, lived inland south of the Phasis river and by the fourth century had won mastery over Colchis and its neighbouring tribes. Early Byzantine writers such as the historian Procopius even called the whole of Colchis Lazica after them. Their capital, Archaeopolis, is identified with the ruins near Nokalakevi in western Georgia. On the map the name stands beside that of the Heniochi, and the two may have been meant as a single two-word name.