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.
[10] The ascendance of the Mihranid lines to the thrones of Caucasia was, in fact, a manifestation of the victory of the Sassanids over what remained in the region of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia whose Armenian branch was now in decline and the Georgian one had already been extinct.
The Roman emperor Valens intervened and restored Sauromaces to the throne in 370, although Aspacures’ son and successor, Mihrdat III (r. 365–380), was permitted to retain control of the eastern part of the kingdom.
[16] After Vakhtang I's death in 522, the family went in decline and exercised only a limited authority over Iberia, the government being effectively run by the Tbilisi-based Iranian viceroy through the compromise with local princes.
Dispossessed of the crown, heirs of Vakhtang I remained in their mountain fortresses – the senior Chosroid branch in the province of Kakheti, and the minor one, the Guaramids, in Klarjeti and Javakheti.
693), regained power, and the elder Chosroid branch again withdrew into their appanages in Kakheti, where it produced a notable member, Archil, a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church, martyred at the hands of the Arabs in 786.
The Chosroid possessions in Kakheti were taken over by the local noble families who formed a succession of chorepiscopi down to the 11th century, while the Guaramid estates passed to their relatives from the Bagratid dynasty.