The Zydretae were an ancient people of Colchis

Colchis

In ancient geography, Colchis or Kolkhis was an ancient Georgian state kingdom and region in Western Georgia, which played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the Georgian nation.The Kingdom of Colchis contributed significantly to the development of medieval Georgian...

 recorded by the Classical

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

 accounts as dwelling on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea), on the southern side of the Apsarus river (modern-day Çoruh

Çoruh River

The Çoruh River or Ch'orokhi River rises in the Mescit Mountains in north-eastern Turkey, flows through the cities of Bayburt, Ispir, Yusufeli, and Artvin, along the Kelkit-Çoruh Fault, before flowing into Georgia, where it reaches the Black Sea just south of Batumi and a few kilometers north of...

/Chorokhi in the borderlands of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 and Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

), and between the Machelonoi and the Lazi

Laz people

The Laz are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia...

 tribes. The early 2nd century Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 author Arrian

Arrian

Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...

 lists several neighboring and probably ethnically related tribes on a west to east orientation: the Sannoi

Svaneti

Svaneti is a historic province in Georgia, in the northwestern part of the country. It is inhabited by the Svans, a geographic subgroup of the Georgians.- Geography :...

, Drilae, Machelonoi, Heniochoi, Zudreitai, and Lazoi

Laz people

The Laz are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia...

 (Perip. 1 1.1-2). The anonymous (probably post-4th century) Periplus Ponti Euxini places them further south between the Akamosis and Archabis rivers. Little is known about the Zydretae’s social and political life, but at that time when Arrian described them (c. 130s AD), they seem to have been subjected to the king of Iberia

Caucasian Iberia

Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...

in eastern Georgia.