Phazas was a prince of the Iberian

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...

 royal family

Chosroid Dynasty

The Chosroids were a dynasty of the kings and later of the presiding princes of the early Georgian state of Iberia, natively known as Kartli, from the fourth to the ninth centuries. Of Iranian origin and a branch of the Mihranid House, the family accepted Christianity as their official religion c...

 and a cavalry officer in the Roman service during the Gothic War (535–554). He was a nephew of Peranius

Peranius

Peranius was a Georgian prince from Iberia and a military commander in Roman service. According to Procopius, he was the eldest son of the Iberian king Gurgenes. Gurgenes can be identified with Vakhtang I Gorgasali of the Georgian sources; and Peranius might have been his brother rather than a son...

 and cousin of Pacurius

Pacurius

Pacurius was a prince of the Iberian royal family and a military commander in the Roman service in Italy. His name is presumably a Latinized rendition of the Georgian Bakuri....

.

In 542, he commanded an Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n force sent with Maximinus by sea from Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The expedition was delayed at Syracuse

Syracuse, Italy

Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...

 whence Phazas was sent to assist Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, besieged by the Goths

Goths

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

; a storm drove the Roman ships ashore close to the Gothic camp. Many were killed or captured, but Phazas and Herodianus, commander of the Thracia

Thracia

Thracia is a Web-Based computer game created and developed by an exclusively Romanian team, part of Infotrend Consulting, and launched in 2009. At the time, it was the first endeavor of its kind. All browser games were text based, made up mostly of static content...

n corps, with a few others escaped. In late 547, Phazas accompanied Belisarius

Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously....

 to Tarentum

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

 and, together with Barbation, was entrusted with the duty to guard the passes around Crotone

Crotone

Crotone is a city and comune in Calabria, southern Italy, on the Ionian Sea. Founded circa 710 BC as the Achaean colony of Croton , it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, when its name was changed to the current one. In 1994 it became the capital of the newly established...

 where he clashed with the cavalry of the Ostrogoth

Ostrogoth

The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths , a Germanic tribe who developed a vast empire north of the Black Sea in the 3rd century AD and, in the late 5th century, under Theodoric the Great, established a Kingdom in Italy....

 king Totila

Totila

Totila, original name Baduila was King of the Ostrogoths from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.A relative of...

. His force was annihilated and Phazas himself was killed in action.