John Tzibus or Joannes Tzibus ( la, Ioannes Tzibus, Greek: ) was a general of the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

emperor

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...

. He served as the ''

magister militum per Armeniam (Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, ...

'', replacing the unpopular Peter by 535 at the latest. He founded the port city of

Petra, Lazica Petra () 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 st ...

, through which he

monopolized A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a spec ...

the trade in Lazica, acting as a middleman. This triggered the Lazic king Gubazes II to switch sides. John Tzibus was killed by an arrow in the neck in 541 AD during the siege of his fortress by the

Sasanians The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

, who were now allied with the Lazic king. This marked the beginning of the

Lazic War The Lazic War, also known as the Colchidian War or in Georgian historiography as the Great War of Egrisi was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire for control of the ancient Georgian region of Lazica. The Lazic War lasted fo ...

between the Sasanians and the Byzantines.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Tzibus Generals of Justinian I Medieval merchants Magistri militum 541 deaths Year of birth unknown Byzantine businesspeople Byzantines killed in battle 6th-century Byzantine military personnel Lazic War People of the Roman–Sasanian Wars Deaths by arrow wounds Petra, Lazica City founders 6th-century businesspeople