Caucasian Iberia in the context of "Arsacid dynasty of Iberia"

The Artaxiads (Georgian: არტაშესიანი, romanized: art'ashesiani), a branch of the eponymous dynasty of Armenia, ruled Iberia (ancient Georgia) from c. 90 BC to 30 BC. 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 about the Artaxiad kings of Armenia. Professor Cyril Toumanoff identifies the king of Armenia of this account as Artavasdes I (ruled c. 159 BC - c. 115 BC) and considers the newly installed Iberian king, Artaxias I (ruled 90–78 BC), 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.

Little is known about the early years of the Iberian Artaxiad rule. They seem to have been under the influence of their Armenian cousins to whom Iberia had relinquished a significant portion of its territory. This association with the Armenian Artaxiads, who were at their peak of power during the reign of Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55 BC), brought about Iberia’s involvement in the Third Mithridatic War between the Pontus-Armenian alliance and Rome (75–65 BC). Plutarch and Licinius Macer state that Iberian contingents featured prominently in the battles of Tigranocerta (69 BC) and Artaxata (68 BC). Even after the surrender of Tigranes to the mercy of Pompey, the Artaxiad king of Iberia Artoces (r. 78–63 BC) continued to offer a stubborn resistance to the invading Romans, but was eventually defeated and forced to plead for peace. This Artoces well known to the Classical sources is apparently the Artag (Artog), son of Arshak/Artaxias, of the Georgian annals which surprisingly omit any mention of the Roman invasion, but instead report the king’s fighting with the “Persians”.

Eristavi (Georgian: ერისთავი; literally, "head of the nation") was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "prince" or less commonly as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province. Holders of the title were ex-officio commanders of a military 'banner', wore a distinctive dress, ring, belt and spear and rode a particular breed of horse.

Some high-ranking eristavis were also titled as eristavt-eristavi (Georgian: ერისთავთ-ერისთავი), i.e. "duke of dukes" or archduke but it is improbable that the holder of the title had any subordinate eristavis. Erismtavari (Georgian: ერისმთავარი; literally, "chief of the people" or grand duke) was a similar title chiefly endowed upon the pre-Bagratid rulers of Iberia (Eastern Georgia) and later used interchangeably with the eristavi.

The theme of Iberia (Greek: θέμα Ἰβηρίας) was an administrative and military unit (theme) within the Byzantine Empire carved by the Byzantine Emperors out of several Georgian lands in the 11th century. It was formed as a result of Emperor Basil II’s annexation of a portion of the Bagrationi dynasty domains (1000–1021) and later aggrandized at the expense of several Armenian kingdoms acquired by the Byzantines in a piecemeal fashion in the course of the 11th century. The population of the theme—at its largest extent—was multiethnic with a possible Georgian majority, including a sizable Armenian community of Chalcedonic rite to which Byzantines sometimes expanded, as a denominational name, the ethnonym "Iberian", a Graeco-Roman designation of Georgians. The theme ceased to exist in 1074 as a result of the Seljuk invasions.

Mikhail Pavlovich Sabinin (Russian: Михаил Павлович Сабинин, Georgian: მიხეილ პავლეს ძე საბინინი, monk Gobron, Georgian: გობრონ; 1845–1900) was a Russo-Georgian monk, historian of the Georgian Orthodox Church and icon painter.

He was born to the Russian priest from Tver, Pavel Sabinin, whose wife was Georgian. Educated at the Tiflis gymnasium in the 1860s, he then attended St. Petersburg Theologian Academy and attained to a magister degree for his work History of the Georgian Church until the End of the 6th Century ("История грузинской церкви до конца VI в." [СПб., 1877]), the first comprehensive treatment of the subject produced in Russian. He travelled in several regions of Georgia, studying monuments of Christian architecture, copying frescos and icons, recording legends and collecting manuscripts. In St. Petersburg, he was tonsured a monk and given the name Gobron after a 10th-century Georgian saint. In 1882, he published The Paradise of Georgia (საქართველოს სამოთხე; St. Petersburg, 1882), a voluminous lithographed edition of biographies of important Georgian Orthodox Christian saints. In the 1880s, he served at the famous Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos. In 1882 he published also The Passion of Eustathius of Mtskheta.Also in the 1880s he refurbished the chapel housing the relics of St. Nino at the Bodbe Monastery in Georgia.

The Guaramid dynasty or Guaramiani (Georgian: გუარამიანი) was the younger branch of the Chosroid royal house of Iberia (Kartli, eastern Georgia). They ruled Iberia as Grand dukes (erismtavari) in the periods of 588–627, 684–748, and 779/780–786, and three of them were bestowed with the dignity of curopalates by the Byzantine imperial court.

Stephen I (Georgian: სტეფანოზ I, Step'anoz I or Stephanoz I; died 628), of the Guaramid Dynasty, was a presiding prince of Iberia (Kartli, central and eastern Georgia) from c. 590 to 627. He was killed following the Siege of Tbilisi by the invading Byzantine army.

The area of Georgia was under Roman control between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD. This control varied by time and was intermittent over the kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia in the Caucasus region. These kingdoms roughly correspond to some of the western and eastern parts of modern Georgia.