Description : Petra (Greek: Πέτρα) was a fortified town on the eastern Black Sea coast, in Lazica in what is now western Georgia. In the 6th century, under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, it served as an important Eastern Roman outpost in the Caucasus and, due to its strategic location, became a battleground of the 541–562 Lazic War between Rome and Sasanian Persia (Iran). Mainstream scholarly opinion identifies Petra with a ruined settlement of Late Antiquity at the village of Tsikhisdziri in Adjara, southwestern Georgia. Petra is first referred to in the Novellae Constitutiones by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I, dated to 535. It was built to reinforce the Roman authority in the kingdom of Lazica, located on the southeastern shores of the Black Sea and, with the emperor's approval, was named in his honor as Petra Pia Justiniana. According to the contemporary historian Procopius, Petra was founded through the efforts of the Roman official John Tzibus, who thereafter exercised tight control of imports into Lazica and controlled local access to luxury commodities and much-needed salt. The name of Petra, literally, "rock" in Greek, was a reference to the rocky and precipitous coast where the city was built. Its location between the sea and the cliffs rendered the city inaccessible, except for a narrow and rocky stretch of level ground, which was defended by a defensive wall with two towers.
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