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CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF GEORGIA 87
From the very first, the Georgians have evidently been
split up into different tribes, with separate chieftains (tavadi),
which may have been composed of various racial elements.
It seems that the chief at Mtskhetha was recognized from early
times as paramount in East Georgia. This town was fortu
nately situated at the place where two important trade-routes
crossed : one from India and Persia, passing south of the
Caspian Sea, up the course of the Kura and down along the
Rion to the Black Sea ; and the other from Armenia up
the Aragva Valley, across the Caucasus to the Sea of Azov
and beyond.
Even in the days of Darius and Xerxes the country was
under Persian suzerainty and influence. After Alexander the
Great’s alleged conquest of the country and appointment of
a satrap at Mtskhetha, East Georgia is said to have regained
its freedom under the leadership of Pharnavaz, who became
the first king of the country about the year 302 b.c. ; but this
is not certain. In the first century b.c. the country was under
Mithridates, the powerful king of Pontus, until he was
defeated by Lucullus in 72 b.c, and by Pompey in 65 b.c,
when the nation came into touch with the Roman world.
Its civilization, however, especially that of East Georgia,
continued to be influenced by Persia, whence also came some
of its kings.
Of the religion of the Georgians wc know little. In
remote times they seem to have worshipped the sun and
moon and five stars (the planets). Strabo (XI, 4, 7) says of
the Iberians’ neighbours on the east, the Albanians, whose
country also included the eastern part of what was later
Georgia (Kakhetia), that they worshipped the sun, moon, and
Zeus, but chiefly the moon, of which there was a temple not
far from Iberia. This may well have been a temple of the
goddess Anahit, who, like the corresponding goddess Ma of
Cappadocia l was generally associated with the moon, and by
the Greeks with Artemis. No doubt she was the same goddess
as the Leucothea of the Moshi in the Kura Valley, who is
mentioned by Strabo. It is a striking fact, moreover, that at
no great distance from these, at Phasis in Colchis, there was
Strabo, XII, 2, 3.
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