Iberia
Iberia, 1) known to the ancients as the fertile upper reaches of the Cyrus (Kur) River, present-day Georgia, bordered Colchis to the west, the Caucasus to the north, Albania to the east, and Armenia to the south, producing abundant grain, oil, and fine wine. The inhabitants, who called their land Kharthli, were of non-Indo-European origin and ancestors of the modern Georgians. The Greeks and Romans called them Iberes or Iberi. They were peaceful and civilized, showing Aryan (Median) influences. Their main occupation was agriculture, and their cult was sun worship. The temple of Aramazi (Ahuramazda) stood in Harmastis (ruins near Tbilisi). They maintained a strict separation between the castes of nobles, priests, warriors, and peasant slaves. Iberia only became better known through Pompey‘s campaign (65 BC) and the account of his secretary, Theophanes. From the time of Trajan, Iberia was under Roman influence, which it remained under until after the death of Julian. It was then conquered by the Persian king Zapor. Christianity arrived in the country from Armenia in the 4th century. The Iberian Empire flourished in the 5th–7th centuries AD.
Iberia, 2) old name for Hispania, especially the land of the Iberians, an ancient people of southwestern Europe, traversed by the Iberus (Ebro) River and once spread throughout Spain and as far as Gaul. Descendants of these Iberians are the present-day Basques, as Wilhelm von Humboldt demonstrated in his »Prüfung der Untersuchungen über die Urbewohner Hispaniens mittels der vaskischen Sprache« (Berl. 1821).
Source: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, 6. Auflage 1905–1909