Guaram I (Georgian: ?????? I) was a Georgian prince, who attained to the hereditary rulership of Iberia and the East Roman (Byzantine) title of curopalates from 588 to c. 590. He is commonly identified with the Gorgenes (G???????, Hellenized form of Gurgen) of the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes.
Guaram was born to Leo, the younger son of king Vakhtang I Gorgasali and his Roman consort Helene, thus being a member of the younger, non-royal branch of the Chosroid dynasty, which was in possession of the southwestern Iberian duchies of Klarjeti and Javakheti. He is reported by the medieval Georgian author Sumbat Davitis-Dze to be the first Bagrationi ruler, a claim that has not been accepted as credible.[1]
When the war between the Roman and Sassanid Iranian empires resumed under Justin II (r. 565-578), Guaram/Gorgenes allied himself with the Armenian prince Vardan III Mamikonian and the Romans in a desperate attempt to break free of Iranian control in 572 (Theoph. Byz. Fr. 3). He apparently fled to Constantinople when the uprising failed and remained there until he reappeared on political scene in 588, when the Iberians are reported by the Georgian chronicler Juansher to have revolted from the Sassanid rule again. The Iberian nobles asked the emperor Maurice (r. 582-602) for a ruler from the Iberian royal house; Maurice sent Guaram, conferring on him the dignity of curopalates and sending him to Mtskheta. Thus, the presiding principate of Iberia replaced the Chosroid kingship dormant since its suppression by the Sassanids c. 580. He has traditionally been credited with the foundation of the Jvari Monastery at Mtskheta. Guaram was succeeded by his son, Stephen I.[2][3]
Guaram I was the first Georgian ruler to take the unusual step of issuing coins modeled on the silver drachms of the Sassanids. These coins, referred to as the "Iberian-Sassanid", feature the initials GN, i.e., Gurgen. Thus, "Guaram" (recorded by the Georgian chronicles) seems to have been the name destined for the domestic usage; while "Gurgen" was the official name of this ruler used for foreign relations, and found in the coinage and in foreign sources
The Guaramid Dynasty or Guramianni (Georgian: ??????????) [1] was the younger branch of the Chosroid Royal House of Georgian kings of Iberia (Kartli, eastern Georgia). They ruled Iberia as presiding princes (erismtavari) in the periods of 588-627, 684-748, and 779/780-786, three with the dignity of curopalates bestowed by the Byzantine imperial court.
History
This branch descended from the Iberian King Vakhtang I's son Leo, born of Vakhtang's second wife, Helena, a relative of the Byzantine emperor (485/6). Leo and his brother Mihrdat were given the western portion of the Kingdom of Iberia, composed of the duchies of Klarjeti, Odzrkhe, and the western half of that of Tsunda, of which, however, they were soon deprived by the elder Chosroid line and left as Princes of Klarjeti and Javakheti. Beginning with Leo's son Guaram I (r. 588-c. 590), members of this house were Presiding Princes of Iberia in the years 588-627, 684-C.748, c.780-786, three with the dignity of curopalate bestowed by the Byzantine government.
The Guaramids were related through marriage with the leading princely houses of Georgia the Chosroids, Nersianids, and the Bagratids. In the latter case, the marriage of Guaram III (r. 779/780-786)s daughter with the fugitive Bagratuni prince Vasak produced the new Bagrationi dynasty, which would later become the last and the most long-lasting ruling family of Georgia. The extinction of Guaramid line by the late 8th century allowed their Bagratid cousins to gather their inheritance in the former Guaramid estates once they themselves had come to power.
The tenth-century Georgian chronicler Sumbat Davitis-Dze in his History of the Bagratids erroneously (or purposefully) identified the Guaramids as essentially Bagratid who allegedly came from the Holy Land to settle in the Georgian lands.
Guaramid rulers of Iberia
Guaram I (588-c. 590)
Stephanus I (c. 590-627)
Guaram II (684-c. 693)
Guaram III (c. 693-c. 748)
Stephanus III (779/780-786)
The Principate of Iberia (Georgian: ??????? ????????) is a conventional term applied to an aristocratic regime in early medieval Caucasian Georgia that flourished in the period of interregnum between the sixth and ninth centuries, when the leading political authority was exercised by a succession of princes. The principate was established shortly after the Sassanid Iranian suppression of the local royal Chosroid Dynasty, around 580; it lasted until 888, when the kingship was restored by a member of the Bagrationi Dynasty. This polity was centered on the core region in what is now central and eastern Georgia known as Kartli to the natives and as Iberia to Classical and Byzantine authors. Its borders fluctuated greatly as the presiding princes of Iberia confronted the Iranians, Romans, Khazars, Arabs, and the neighboring Caucasian rulers throughout this period.
The time of the principate was climacteric in the history of Georgia; the principate saw the final formation of the Georgian Christian church, the first flourishing of a literary tradition in the native language, the rise of the Georgian Bagratid family, and the beginning of cultural and political unification of various feudal enclaves, which would commingle in the Kingdom of Georgia by the early eleventh century.
Contents
History
When the king of a unified Iberia, Bakur III, died in 580, the Sassanid government of Iran seized on the opportunity to abolish the Iberian monarchy. The Iberian nobles acquiesced to this change without resistance, while the heirs of the royal house withdrew to their highland fortresses the main Chosroid line in Kakheti, and the younger Guaramid branch in Klarjeti and Javakheti. However, the direct Iranian control brought about heavy taxation and an energetic promotion of Zoroastrianism in a largely Christian country. Therefore, when the Eastern Roman emperor Maurice embarked upon a military campaign against Iran in 582, the Iberian nobles requested that he helped restore the monarchy. Maurice did respond, and, in 588, sent his protégé, Guaram I of the Guaramids, as a new ruler to Iberia. However, Guaram was not crowned as king, but recognized as a presiding prince and bestowed with the Eastern Roman title of curopalates. The Roman-Iranian treaty of 591 confirmed this new rearrangement, but left Iberia divided into Roman- and Sassanid-dominated parts at the town of Tbilisi.[1]
Thus, the establishment of the principate marked the ascendancy of the dynastic aristocracy in Iberia, and was a compromise solution amid the Byzantine-Iranian rivalry for the control of the Caucasus. The presiding princes of Iberia, as the leading local political authority, were to be confirmed and sanctioned by the court of Constantinople. They are variously entitled in Georgian sources, erist'avt'-mt'avari, eris-mt'avari, erist'avt'-erist'avi, or simply erist'avi (normally translated in English as "prince", "arch-duke", or "duke"). Most of them were additionally invested with various Roman/Byzantine titles. For example, eight out of the fourteen presiding princes held the dignity of curopalates, one of the highest in the Eastern Empire.[2] The medieval Georgian chronicles make it clear, however, that these princes, although they enjoyed the loyalty of the great nobles, were of limited capabilities since they "could not remove the dukes of Iberia from their duchies because they had charters from the Great King and from the Emperor confirming them in their duchies."[1]
Through offering their protection to the Iberian principate, the Byzantine emperors pushed to limit Iranian and then Islamic influence in the Caucasus, but the princes of Iberia were not always consistent in their pro-Byzantine line, and, as a matter of political expediency, sometimes recognized the suzerainty of the rival regional powers.[3]
Guarams successor, the second presiding prince Stephen I, reoriented his politics towards Iran in a quest to reunite a divided Iberia, but this cost him his life when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius attacked Tbilisi in 626.[4] Heraclius reinstated a member of the more pro-Byzantine Chosroid house, which, nevertheless, was forced to recognize the suzerainty of the Umayyad Caliph in the 640s, but revolted, unsuccessfully, against the Arab hegemony in the 680s. Dispossessed of the principate of Iberia, the Chosroids retired to their appanage in Kakheti where they ruled as regional princes until the family went extinct by the early 800s. The Guaramids returned to power and faced a difficult task of maneuvering between the Byzantines and Arabs. The Arabs, primarily concerned with maintaining control of the cities and trade routes, dispossessed them of Tbilisi where a Muslim emir was installed in the 730s. The dynasts of Iberia sat at Uplistsikhe whence they exercised only a limited authority over local Georgian lords who, entrenched in their mountain castles, maintained a degree of freedom from the Arabs.[5] The Guaramids were briefly succeeded by the Nersianids between c. 748 and 779/80, and had vanished once and for all by 786. This year witnessed a bloody crackdown upon the rebellious Georgian nobles organized by Khuzayma b. Khazim, an Arab viceroy (wali) of the Caucasus.[6]
The extinction of the Guaramids and near-extinction of the Chosroids allowed their energetic cousins of the Bagratid family, in the person of Ashot I (r. 786/813-830) to gather their inheritance in parts of Iberia. Having accepted the Byzantine protection, the Bagratids, from their base in the region of Tao-Klarjeti, presided over the period of cultural revival and territorial expansionism. In 888, Adarnase I, of the Bagratids, who had emerged as a winner in a protracted dynastic strife, succeeded in restoring the Georgian royal authority through assuming the title of the King of the Georgians.[7]
Presiding princes of Iberia
Guaram I, the Guaramid, 588-c. 590
Stephen I, the Guaramid, c. 590-627
Adarnase I, the Chosroid, 627-637/642
Stephen II, the Chosroid, 637/642-c. 650
Adarnase II, the Chosroid, c. 650-684
Guaram II, the Guaramid, 684-c. 693
Guaram III, the Guaramid, c. 693-c. 748
Adarnase III, the Nersianid, c. 748-c. 760
Nerse, the Nersianid, c. 760-772, 775-779/780
Stephen III, the Guaramid, 779/780-786
Ashot I, the Bagratid, 813-830
Bagrat I, 842/843-876
David I, 876-881
Gurgen I, 881-891 (overlaps with Adarnase IVs restoration of kingship)
These rulers reigned as titular kings:
Adarnase IV, 888923
David II, 923937
Sumbat I, 937958
Bagrat II, 958994
Gurgen of Georgia, 9941008
Unified Kingdom of Georgia
Bagrat III, 10081014
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