KING VAKHTANG GORGASALI
The Messenger
June 4 2010
Georgia
The early reign of the Iberian king Vakhtang Gorgasali (447-502)
saw the relative revival of the kingdom. Though formally a vassal of
the Persians, he secured Georgia’s northern borders by subjugating
the Caucasian mountain peoples and brought the adjacent western and
southern Georgian lands under his control.
The Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali states that the king was given at birth
the Iranian name Varazkhosrovtang, rendered in Georgian as Vakhtang.
Gorgasali is an Iranian sobriquet meaning “wolf’s head”, which must
have been bestowed on him due to the shape of the helmet he wore. He
led his people, in an ill-fated alliance with the Eastern Roman Empire,
into a lengthy struggle against Sassanid Iranian hegemony which ended
with his defeat and the weakening of the kingdom of Iberia. In 482 he
led a general uprising against Persia and started a desperate war for
independence that lasted for twenty years but could not get Byzantine
support and was eventually killed in battle in 502.
However tradition ascribes to him the reorganisation of the Georgian
Church and foundation of Tbilisi, Georgia’s modern capital.
Vakhtang is the subject of the 8th or 11th century vita attributed to
Juansher which intertwines history and legend into an epic narrative,
hyperbolising Vakhtang’s personality and biography. This literary work
has been the primary source of Vakhtang’s portrayal as an exemplary
warrior-king and statesman, an image which has endured in popular
memory to this day. He had already emerged as one of the most popular
figures in Georgia’s history in the Middle Ages and has been canonised
by the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Other medieval Georgian sources mention Vakhtang only briefly, yet
with a respect rarely afforded to the pre-Bagratid Georgian monarchs.
Vakhtang is reported to have succeeded his father King Mihrdat V at
the age of 7. His mother, a Christianised Persian called Sagdukht,
assumed the regency in Vakhtang’s minority. The author then describes
the grave situation Iberia was in at that time, troubled by the
Sassanids’ Zoroastrianising efforts and a ravaging raid by the
“Ossetians” from the north, this being a possible reference to the
invasion by the Huns (whose army may have included Alans) through the
Caspian Gates mentioned by Priscus. At the age of 16 Vakhtang is said
to have led a victorious retaliatory war against the “Ossetians”,
beating the enemy’s giant in single combat and freeing his sister
Mirandukht from captivity.
At the age of 19, Vakhtang married Balendukht, “daughter” of the
Great King Hormizd (apparently Hormizd III, r. 457-459). Soon, upon
the Great King’s request, Vakhtang took part in a campaign in “India”
and was probably involved in Peroz’s abortive expedition against the
Hephthalites in the 460s and also against the Roman Empire in 472, in
which Vakhtang is reported to have gained control of Egrisi (Lazica)
and Abkhazia (Abasgia).
Returning to Iberia, Vakhtang took a series of measures aimed at
strengthening royal authority. Resenting Iranian encroachments on
his independence Vakhtang reversed his political orientation and
effected a rapprochement with the Roman Government. He married Helena,
“daughter” (possibly relative) of Emperor Zeno, and received permission
from Constantinople to elevate the head of the Church of Iberia,
the Bishop of Mtskheta, to the rank of Catholicos, who he sent,
together with 12 newly-appointed Bishops, to be consecrated at Antioch.
By espousing pro-Roman policy Vakhtang further alienated his nobles,
who sought Iranian support against the king’s encroachments on their
autonomy. In 482 Vakhtang put to death his most influential vassal,
Varsken, Vitaxa of Gogarene, a convert to Zoroastrianism and a
champion of Iran’s influence in the Caucasus, who had executed his
Christian wife, Shushanik, daughter of the Armenian Mamikonid Prince
Vardan II and the hero of the earliest surviving piece of Georgian
literature. With this act Vakhtang placed himself in open confrontation
with his Iranian suzerain. Vakhtang called on the Armenian princes
and the Huns to help him. After some hesitation, the Armenians under
Vardan’s nephew Vahan joined forces with Vakhtang. The allies were
routed and Iberia was ravaged by punitive Iranian expeditions in 483
and 484, forcing Vakhtang into flight to Roman-controlled Lazica
(modern western Georgia). After Peroz’s death in the war with the
Hephthalites in 484, his successor Balash reestablished peace in the
Caucasus. Vakhtang was able to resume his reign in Iberia, but did
not betray his pro-Roman line.
Once the Hundred Years Peace between Iran and Rome collapsed Kavadh
I of the Sassanids summoned Vakhtang as a vassal to join in a new
campaign against Rome. Vakhtang refused, provoking an Iranian invasion
of his kingdom. Then about 60 years old, he was obliged to spend the
last years of his life in war and exile, fruitlessly appealing for
Roman aid. The chronology of this period is confused, but by 518 an
Iranian viceroy had been installed at the Iberian town of (Tbilisi)
Tiflis, founded – according to Georgian tradition – by Vakhtang and
designated as the country’s future capital. Vakhtang died fighting
an Iranian invading army at the hands of his renegade slave, who
wounded him through an armpit defect in his armour. The wounded
king was transported to his castle at Ujarma where he died and was
interred in the Cathedral of Mtskheta. Vakhtang might have ended
his reign in 522 by taking refuge in Lazica, where he possibly died
around the same time. Gurgenes’ family members – Peranius, Pacurius,
and Phazas – had careers in the Roman military.
Vakhtang was survived by three sons. Dachi, Vakhtang’s eldest son by
his first marriage to the Iranian princess Balendukht (who died in
childbirth), succeeded him as king of Iberia and was force to pay
Iran allegiance. Two younger sons, from Vakhtang’s second marriage
to the Roman Helena, Leon and Mihrdat, were given the southwestern
Iberian provinces of Klarjeti and Javakheti in which Leon’s progeny –
the Guaramids – traditionally followed a pro-Roman orientation. Both
these lines survived in Iberia into the 8th century, being succeeded
by their energetic cousins from the Bagratid family. Toumanoff has
inferred that Samanazus, the name of the Iberian “king” found in John
Malala’s list of rulers contemporary with Justinian and reported
by Theophanes the Confessor and Georgios Kedrenos to have visited
Constantinople in 535, might be a corruption meaning “brother of Dachi”
and so perhaps refers to Mihrdat.
Vakhtang had already entered the pantheon of Georgian historical
heroes in the Middle Ages. One of the royal standards of the Georgian
Bagratids was known as the “Gorgasliani”, i.e., “of Gorgasali”. This
is sometimes supposed to be the earliest model of the current Georgian
national flag. In popular memory, Vakhtang’s image has acquired a
legendary and romantic facade.
From: A. Papazian