Saspeires (, ka, სასპერები, ''sasp'erebi'', other names include Saspers, Saspines, Sapinians, and Sapirians) are a people of uncertain origin mentioned by

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

. According to the most widespread theory, they are a Kartvelian tribe. The toponym of modern-day city

İspir İspir (, Sper; ka, სპერი, Speri) is a municipality and district of Erzurum Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,129 km2, and its population is 14,607 (2022). It is on the Çoruh River. The mayor is Ahmet Coşkun ( MHP). History İs ...

and ancient region of Speri is thought by some to be derived from their name. According to Rayfield,

Diauehi Diauehi (Modern ka, დიაოხი , Urartian ''Diauehi'', Greek ''Taochoi'', Armenian '' Tayk'', possibly Assyrian ''Daiaeni'') was a tribal union located in northeastern Anatolia, that was recorded in Assyrian and Urartian sources dur ...

is mentioned in the Greek records as Taochoi, but Herodotus in 450 BC refers to them as Sasperi. the name Sper with a Georgian prefix of place Sa-, which evolved into the term Iberian. The Saspires were originally associated with the Caucasian Iberians and appear to have emerged from the

Lesser Caucasus The Lesser Caucasus or Lesser Caucasus Mountains, also called Caucasus Minor, is the second of the two main ranges of the Caucasus Mountains, of length about . The western portion of the Lesser Caucasus overlaps and converges with east Turkey an ...

to the east. The Alarodians,

Colchians In classical antiquity and Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the ...

, and Saspires were joined in one command, and all were dressed alike. The Colchians themselves, were not classified as belonging to any

Satrapy A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. A satrapy is the territory governed by a satrap. ...

. The Colchians, however, attended the army of Xerxes as auxiliaries. The incredible number of tribes of Mount Caucasus is spoken by ancient as modern historians.Memoir of the Map of the Countries between the Euxine and the Caspian, 1788 According to some authors, they constituted a significant part of the population of the early Georgian

Kingdom of Iberia In Greco-Roman geography, Iberia (Ancient Greek: ''Iberia''; ; Parthian: ; Middle Persian: ) was an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli or Iveria ( or ), known after its core province. The kingdom existed during Classical Antiquity and ...

and played a large role in the ethnogenesis of the Georgian nation.

References

{{Ancient Georgians Ancient peoples of Georgia (country) Tribes described primarily by Herodotus

See also

References