of the Laz in antiquity. Modern theories suggest that the Colchian tribes are direct ancestors of the Laz-Mingrelians, they constituted the dominant ethnic and cultural presence in the south-eastern Black Sea region in antiquity, and hence played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the modern Georgians. Antiquity In the thirteenth century BC, the Kingdom of Colchis was formed as a result of the increasing consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region, which covered modern western Georgia and Turkey's north-eastern provinces of Trabzon, Rize and Artvin. Colchis was an important region in Black Sea trade – rich with gold, wax, hemp, and honey. In the eighth century, several Greek trading colonies were established along the shores of the Black Sea, one of them being Trebizond () founded by Milesian traders from Sinope in 756 BC. Trebizond's trade partners included the Proto-Laz tribes of Mossynoeci. By the sixth century BC, the tribes living in the southern Colchis (Macrones, Mossynoeci, Marres etc.) were incorporated into the nineteenth satrapy of Persia. The Achaemenid Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great, however following the Alexander's death a number of separate kingdoms were established in Anatolia, including Pontus, in the corner of the southern Black Sea, ruled by the Persian nobleman Mithridates I. Culturally, the kingdom was Hellenized, with Greek as the official language. Mithridates VI conquered the Colchis, and gave it to his son Mithridates of Colchis. As a result of the Roman campaigns between 88 and 63 BC, led by the generals Pompey and Lucullus, the kingdom of Pontus was completely destroyed by the Romans and all its territory, including Colchis, was incorporated into the Roman Empire. The former southern provinces of Colchis were reorganized into the Roman province of Pontus Polemoniacus, while the northern Cholchis became the Roman province of Lazicum. Roman control remained likewise only nominal over the tribes of the interior. The first-century historians Memnon and Strabo remark in passing that the people formerly called Macrones bore in his day the name of Sanni, a claim supported also by Stephanus of Byzantium. The second-century historian Arrian notes that Tzanni, same as the Sanni are neighbours of the Colchians, while the latter were now referred to as the Lazi. By the mid-third century, the Lazi tribe came to dominate most of Colchis, establishing the kingdom of Lazica. Middle Ages The warlike tribes of the Chaldia, called Tzanni, the ancestors of modern