Opsites of Lazica

C. Toumanoff's tentative reconstruction of the family tree of the kings of Lazica

Opsites is the name twice mentioned by the Roman historian Procopius in De Bellis, while recounting the events related to the Lazic War fought between the Eastern Roman and Sassanid Persian empires over the Caucasian state of Lazica.^[1]

In one passage (Proc. BG IV 9.7-8), Procopius remarks parenthetically that Opsites was an uncle of Gubazes and at one time king of the Lazi. He was married to Theodora, of Roman senatorial descent.^[2] At the time of the Lazic revolt against Rome, Theodora, while living among the Apsilii, was captured, by chance, by the Persian commander Nabedes and carried off to Persia.^[3]

Later in Procopius's work (Proc. BG IV 9.11, 9.14, BG IV 9.29-30), Opsites appears as ruler of the eastern part of Abasgia, a land north of Lazica (the west was under Sceparnas). He was installed after the Abasgians rejected Roman rule c. 550.^[4] Opsites led the Abasgians against the Romans under Ioannes qui et Guzes and Vligagus who defeated the rebels and captured their fort of Trachea. Opsites fled to the Huns of the Caucasus but his family members were all captured.^[4]

The scholarly opinion is divided as to whether the Opsites of these two passages are the same person and whether Procopius's report of him being king of Lazica is true. If Opsites indeed ruled as king, this might have occurred before 541, when Gubazes was king. Professor Cyril Toumanoff assumes that, in both cases, Procopius refers to the same person, a member of the Lazic royal family, who became an Abasgian leader. In the view of Toumanoff, this is highly probable given the fact that Lazica and Abasgia revolted together against the Roman hegemony and Abasgia had long been under the Lazic suzerainty.^[4]

References

1. ^ Martindale & Morris (1980), pp. 955-6.
2. ^ Martindale & Morris (1980), p. 1242.
3. ^ Martindale & Morris (1980), p. 1242.
4. ^ ^{a b c} Toumanoff (1980), pp. 78-85.

Sources

• Martindale, John R. & Morris, John (1980), The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. 3, Part 2, AD 395–527. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521201599.
• Toumanoff, Cyril (1980). "How Many Kings Named Opsites?". A Tribute to John Insley Coddington on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the American Society of Genealogists. Association for the Promotion of Scholarship in Genealogy.