[6][7] The continuing rivalry between Byzantium and Sasanian Persia for supremacy in the Caucasus, and the unsuccessful insurrection (523) of the Georgians under Gurgen had severe consequences for the country.

By the time of Vezhan Buzmihr's tenure as marzban of Iberia, the hagiographies of the period implied that the "kings" in Tbilisi had only the status of mamasakhlisi, which means "head of the (royal) house".

[8] The Iberian nobles acquiesced to this change without resistance,[9] 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.

Therefore, when the Eastern Roman emperor Maurice embarked upon a military campaign against Persia in 582, the Iberian nobles requested that he helped restore the monarchy.

Guaram's successor, the second presiding prince Stephen I (Stephanoz I), reoriented his politics towards Persia in a quest to reunite a divided Iberia, a goal he seems to have accomplished, but this cost him his life when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius attacked Tbilisi in 626,[12] during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, marking the definite Byzantine predominance in most of Georgia by 627-628 at the expense of the Sasanids until the Muslim conquest of Persia.

[14] The kingdoms of the Caucasus, as well as Armenia, had acquired an Iranian population element from the time of the early Scythian invasion of the area in the 1st millennium BC.

[14] The imposition of direct Sasanian rule by Khosrow I meant that, in all likelihood, numerous non-combatant settlers alongside troops and officials were moved to the area.

However, so-called Kartvelo-Sasanian coins were produced locally in Kartli during the later period of Sasanid suzerainty and rule over central-eastern Georgia (Iberia of the classical authors), that is, in the late 6th and first half of the 7th century.

In this third and final phase of Kartvelo-Sasanian coins a small cross can be distinguished as a replacement for the sacred Zoroastrian flame atop the fire altar.