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The failure of Nachoragan, following closely upon the decision of the Lazi to maintain their alliance with Rome in spite of the murder of Gubazes, seems to have convinced the Persian monarch that, in endeavoring to annex Lazica, he had engaged in a hopeless enterprise, and that it would be the most prudent and judicious course to yield to the inevitable, and gradually withdraw from a position which was untenable.
During this critical time Nachoragan remained inactive in Iberia, and contented himself with sending messengers into Lazica to announce his near approach and to animate and encourage his party. The result was such as might have been expected.
Chosroes appointed as his successor a certain Nachoragan, who is said to have been a general of repute, but who proved himself quite unequal to the position which he was called upon to fill, and in the course of two years ruined the Persian cause in Lazica.
It was when affairs were in this state, and he had exactly missed his opportunity, that Nachoragan took the field, and, advancing from Iberia into the region about Kutai's with an army amounting to 60,000 men,1 made preparations for carrying on the war with vigor.
Pretending to receive intelligence of the sudden arrival of a fresh Roman army from Byzantium, he contrived that the report should reach Nachoragan and thereby cause him to divide his troops, and send half of them to meet the supposed reinforcements.
Having lost nearly one-fourth of his army, Nachoragan drew off to Kutai's, and shortly afterwards, leaving the command of the Persians in Lazica to Vaphrizes, retired to winter quarters in Iberia.
But Nachoragan had the advantage of numbers; his men soon succeeded in filling up part of the ditch; and the wooden bulwark could scarcely have long resisted his attacks, if the contest had continued to be wholly one of brute strength. But the Roman commander, Martinus, finding himself inferior in force, brought finesse and stratagem to his aid.
Having meted out to Nachoragan the punishment usually assigned to unsuccessful commanders in Persia, he sent an ambassador to Byzantium in the spring of A.D. 556, and commenced negotiations which he intended to be serious. Diplomacy seems to have been as averse in the days of Chosroes as in our own to an undignified rapidity of proceeding.
Nachoragan, after losing about 2,000 of his best troops in the vicinity of this last-named place, resolved to challenge the Romans to a decisive encounter by attacking the important post of Phasis at the mouth of the river.
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