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In Greco-Roman geography, Iberia was an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli, known after its core province, which during Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages was a significant monarchy in the Caucasus, either as an independent state or as a dependent of larger empires, notably the Sassanid and Roman empires. Iberia, centered on present-day Eastern Georgia, was bordered by Colchis in the west, Caucasian Albania in the east and Armenia in the south.
Pharnavaz I was a king of Kartli, an ancient Georgian kingdom known as Iberia in classical antiquity. The Georgian Chronicles credits him with being the first monarch founding the kingship of Kartli and the Pharnavazid dynasty, while other independent chronicles, such as The Conversion of Kartli make him the second Georgian monarch. Based on the medieval evidence, most scholars locate Pharnavaz's rule in the 3rd century BC: 302–237 BC according to Prince Vakhushti of Kartli, 299–234 BC according to Cyril Toumanoff and 284–219 BC according to Pavle Ingoroqva. Pharnavaz's rise, advent and imperial expansion of the Iberian monarchy was directly tied to the victory of Alexander the Great over the Achaemenid Empire. Pharnavaz ruled under the suzerainty of the Seleucid Empire.
Mirian III was a king of Iberia or Kartli (Georgia), contemporaneous to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. He was the founder of the royal Chosroid dynasty.
Mirian I was king of Iberia from 159 BC to 109 BC. His name (Mihrbān), of Middle Iranian origin, means "friendly, kind", and is derived from Old Iranian Mithrāpāna, meaning "having the protection of Mithra".
Artavasdes I was the Artaxiad king of Armenia from 159 BC to 115 BC. He was the son and successor of Artaxias I.
The Arsacid dynasty or Arshakuni, ruled the Kingdom of Armenia from 12 to 428. The dynasty was a branch of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia. Arsacid kings reigned intermittently throughout the chaotic years following the fall of the Artaxiad dynasty until 62 when Tiridates I secured Parthian Arsacid rule in Armenia. However, he did not succeed in establishing his line on the throne, and various Arsacid members of different lineages ruled until the accession of Vologases II, who succeeded in establishing his own line on the Armenian throne, which would rule the country until it was abolished by the Sasanian Empire in 428.
Pharasmanes I was a king of Iberia. He plays a prominent role in the historian Tacitus’ account of policy and campaigns in the eastern lands of the Roman Empire under Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. According to Cyril Toumanoff, Pharasmanes was a member of the third Pharnavazid dynasty and reigned from 1 to 58. Pharasmanes is mentioned on the Stele of Vespasian. During his reign, Iberia was transformed into the Transcaucasian empire, that would dominate the kingdoms of Armenia and Albania.
The Chosroid dynasty, also known as the Iberian Mihranids, were a dynasty of the kings and later the presiding princes of the early Georgian state of Iberia from the 4th to the 9th centuries. The family, of Iranian Mihranid origin, accepted Christianity as their official religion c. 337, and maneuvered between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Iran to retain a degree of independence. After the abolition of the Iberian kingship by the Sassanids c. 580, the dynasty survived in its two closely related, but sometimes competing princely branches—the elder Chosroid and the younger Guaramid—down to the early ninth century when they were succeeded by the Georgian Bagratids on the throne of Iberia.
The Pharnavazid is the name of the first dynasty of Georgian kings of Kartli (Iberia) preserved by The Georgian Chronicles. Their rule lasted, with intermissions, from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD. The main male line is reported to have become extinct early on and followed by houses related to it in the female line. By the close of the 2nd century AD, the Pharnavazid rule came to an end and the Arsacid Dynasty took over the crown of Iberia.
The Artaxiads, a branch of the eponymous dynasty of Armenia, ruled Iberia from c. 90 BC to 30 AD. According to the medieval Georgian chronicles, they acquired the crown of Iberia after the Iberian nobles revolted against their king P’arnajom, of the Pharnabazid dynasty, and petitioned the king of Armenia to send his son, who was married to a Pharnabazid princess, as their new monarch. Both the king of Armenia and his son are referred to in the chronicles as “Arshak”, probably a confusion with Artaxias which seems to be taken as a general term in reference to the Artaxiad kings of Armenia. Professor Cyril Toumanoff identifies the king of Armenia of this account as Artavasdes I and considers the newly installed Iberian king, Artaxias I, to have been his son. The chronicle goes on to describe a great battle between a combined Iberian-Armenian army against P’arnajom and his followers. In the end, P’arnajom was defeated and killed, and thereafter the Armenian prince was the king of Iberia.
Amazasp III or Hamazasp I was a king of Iberia from 260 to 265 AD. According to Cyril Toumanoff he may have been a scion of the Pharnavazid dynasty, while Richard N. Frye states that he was an Iranian, possibly related to the royal Sasanian family.
Nana was a Queen consort of the Kingdom of Iberia as the second wife of Mirian III in the 4th century. For her role in the conversion of Georgians to Christianity she is regarded by the Georgian Orthodox Church as saint and is canonized as Saint Equal to the Apostles Queen Nana.
Tiberius Julius Sauromates II Philocaesar Philoromaios Eusebes, also known as Sauromates II (Greek: Τιβέριος Ἰούλιος Σαυρομάτης Β΄ Φιλοκαῖσαρ Φιλορωμαῖος Eὐσεβής, Philocaesar Philoromaios Eusebes, the epithets meaning "friend of Caesar, friend of Rome, pious one," was a Roman client king of the Bosporan Kingdom. His coins are known from the period 172–210, probably accounting for his entire reign.
Kartam was a Pharnavazid eristavi of Colchis and prince of the Kingdom of Iberia in the 1st century BC.
Sasanian Iberia refers to the period the Kingdom of Iberia was under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire. The period includes when it was ruled by Marzbans (governors) appointed by the Sasanid Iranian king, and later through the Principality of Iberia.
The Christianization of Iberia refers to the spread of Christianity in the early 4th century by the sermon of Saint Nino in an ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli, known as Iberia in classical antiquity, which resulted in declaring it as a state religion by then-pagan King Mirian III of Iberia. Per Sozomen, this led the king's "large and warlike barbarian nation to confess Christ and renounce the religion of their fathers", as the polytheistic Georgians had long-established anthropomorphic idols, known as the "Gods of Kartli". The king would become the main sponsor, architect, initiator and an organizing power of all building processes. Per Socrates of Constantinople, the "Iberians first embraced the Christian faith" alongside the Abyssinians, but the exact date of an event is still debated. Georgian monarchs, alongside the Armenians, were among the first anywhere in the world to convert to a Christian faith. Prior to the escalation of Armeno-Georgian ecclesiastical rivalry and the christological controversies their Caucasian Christianity was extraordinarily inclusive, pluralistic and flexible that only saw the rigid ecclesiological hierarchies established much later, particularly as "national" churches crystallized from the 6th century. Despite the tremendous diversity of the region, the christianization process was a pan-regional and a cross-cultural phenomenon in the Caucasus, Eurasia's most energetic and cosmopolitan zones throughout the late antiquity, hard enough to place Georgians and Armenians unequivocally within any one major civilization. The Jews of Mtskheta, the royal capital of Kartli, that did play a significant role in the Christianization of the kingdom, would give a strong impetus to deepen the ties between the Georgian monarchy and the Holy Land leading to an increasing presence of Georgians in Palestine, as the activities of Peter the Iberian and other pilgrims confirm, including the oldest attested Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions found in the Judaean Desert alongside the pilgrim graffiti of Nazareth and Sinai.
The style of the Georgian sovereign refers to the formal mode of address to a Georgian monarch (mepe) that evolved and changed many times since the establishment of the ancient Kingdom of Iberia, its transformation to the unified Kingdom of Georgia and its successive monarchies after the disintegration of the realm.
The Mihranids of Gugark were an Iranian princely dynasty, which ruled the Armeno-Iberian frontier region of Gugark from c. 330 to the 8th-century. They held the title of bidaxsh ("margrave").
The unification of the Georgian realm was the 10th-century political movement that resulted in the consolidation of various Georgian Crowns into a single realm with centralized government in 1008, the Kingdom of Georgia, or Sakartvelo. Originally initiated by the powerful local aristocracy of the eristavs, due to centuries-long power struggles and aggressive wars of succession between the Georgian monarchs, arising from their independent ruling traditions of classical antiquity and its Hellenistic-era monarchical establishments in Colchis and Iberia. The initiative was supported by David III the Great of the Bagrationi dynasty, the most powerful ruler in the Caucasus at the time, who would put prince royal Bagrat, his kin and foster-son, on Iberian throne, who would eventually be crowned as a King of all-Georgia. David's Bagratid successors would become the champions of national unification, just like the Rurikids or the Capetians, but despite their enthusiasm, some of the Georgian polities that had been targeted for unification did not join the unification freely and would actively fight against it throughout this process, mostly seeking help and support from the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate. Even though, 1008 unification of the realm would unite most of western and central Georgian lands, the process will continue to the east, and eventually, would reach its total completion under King David IV the Builder. This unprecedented political unification of lands and the meteoric rise of Bagrationi power would inaugurate the Georgian Golden Age and creation of the only medieval pan-Caucasian empire attaining its greatest geographical extent, that would dominate entire Caucasus in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The centralizing power of the crown started to weaken in the 14th century, and even though the tide turned back under King George V the Brilliant, the reunification came up to be short-lived; unified realm would evaporate after invasions of Mongols and Timur that would result in its total collapse in the 15th century.
References
- ↑ Rayfield, pp. 430—431
- ↑ Toumanoff, pp. 423-426
- ↑ Settipani, pp. 411—414
- ↑ Settipani, p. 412
- ↑ Settipani, p. 403
- ↑ Toumanoff, p. 85
- ↑ Rapp (2016) location: 7031
- ↑ Rapp (2016) location: 6784
- ↑ Rapp (2016) location: 6794
- ↑ Rayfield, p. 36
- ↑ Rapp (2016) location: 7149
- ↑ Settipani, pp. 405—406
- ↑ Rayfield, pp. 44—50
- ↑ Settipani, p. 416