This is the first full history of ancient Georgia ever to be written outside Georgia itself. It is also an introduction to the substantial archaeological work that has been carried out in Georgia in recent decades. The principal purpose of the book is to open up ancient Georgia for the world of scholarship at large. It is not only the history of a neglected region, but also a sustained attempt to inform topics and issues that are more familiar to historians of antiquity: the myths of the periphery, particularly of Medea and the Golden Fleece; the Caucasus mountains and their passes; Greek colonization; the Persian, Athenian, and Seleucid empires; Pompey's conquest of Mithridates' empire; the development of the Roman frontier in the eastern Black Sea region; Roman diplomacy in Iberia; the Christianization of Iberia; and Sassanian ambitions in Transcaucasia and Byzantine warfare there.