Pharnavaz, victorious in a power struggle, became the first king of Iberia (c. 302-c. 237 BC). According to the later Georgian chronicles, after driving back an invasion, he subjugated the neighboring areas, including a significant part of the western Georgian state of Colchis (locally known as Egrisi), and seems to have secured recognition of the newly founded state by the Seleucids of Syria. Pharnavaz is also said to have built a major citadel, the Armaztsikhe, and a temple to the god Armazi, and to have created a new system of administration, subdividing the country into several counties called "saeristavos".