The Dates of the Reign of Vakhtang Gorgasali

Abstract

Georgian historiography dates the reign of King Vakhtang Gorgasali to the 2nd half of V c. The king is considered to have died in 502 in a fight with Persians. Cyril Toumanoff has expressed an opinion about the identi-fication of Vakhtang Gorgasali with the King of Kartli Gurgen, mentioned by Procopius of Caesarea in 523. Accordingly, he believed that in case of such an identification, Vakhtang Gorgasali should have died in 527 dur-ing the big Persian invasion of Georgia. We have noticed that the author of the martyrdom of David and Constantine, who was based on the an-cient chronicle (‘Dzveli Utskebani’ - Old Story) and who created his hagio-graphic work in the middle of XI c., made a big mistake: erroneously, due to the similarity of names, he identified the sons of Georgian King Vakh-tang Gorgasali Darchil and Mihrdat and the invasion of Persians in their reign with the sons of the ruler of Georgia (Kartli) Stephanoz III Mihrdat and Archil and invasions of Arabs and Marwan ibn Muhammad (Murvan Qru - “Marwan the Deaf”) that took place two centuries later, in the 30s of VIII c. Consequently, the author related the martyrdom on the back-ground of Arab invasions. The fact that according to the author of the martyrdom, the sons of Vakhtang Gorgasali were in West Georgia, name-ly Anakopia, and fought the so-called Arabs there, makes it clear that the historical developments were taking place in the period of the Great Per-sian-Byzantine War of 542-562. In the title of the work it is mentioned that the invasion, during which the martyrdom of David and Constantine took place, happened in the vicinity of the death of Vakhtang Gorgasali. Thus, it becomes clear that King Vakhtang Gorgasali could not have died during the Persian-Byzantine War of 502-505 and that the Great Invasion of Persians described in the “Georgian Chronicles”, in which Vakhtang Gorgasali was wounded, could only have happened in 527; the king must have died during a war between Persia and Byzantium in 527–532, more specifically in 527 when Persians invaded Georgia. Proceeding from the above, the surmise of Cyril Toumanoff regarding the death of Vakhtang Gorgasali in 527 becomes more convincing and well-grounded. Since it is known that King Vakhtang Gorgasali lived 60 years, the date of his birth can be presumed to be 466-467. This gives us an opportunity to establish a more precise date of reign of Vakhtang’s father - Mirdat and his grand-father - Archil. The dates of reign we have put forward for kings Mirdat and Archil (Archil - 430-463, Mirdat - 463-473) correspond to the infor-mation of the Assyrian version of the Life of Peter the Iberian.