Vakhtang I

He led his people, in an ill-fated alliance with the Byzantine Empire, into a lengthy struggle against Sasanian Iranian hegemony, which ended in Vakhtang's defeat and weakening of the kingdom of Iberia.

[3] Notwithstanding its semi-legendary epic character, the LVG provides many important details, which can be combined with the sources closer to the period in question, such as Lazarus of Parpi and Procopius.

The author then describes the grave situation in which Iberia was at that time, troubled by the Sassanids' Zoroastrianizing efforts and a ravaging raid by the "Ossetians" from the north, this latter being a possible reference to the invasion by the Huns (which 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", winning a single combat against the enemy's giant and relieving his sister Mirandukht from captivity.

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 a hero of the earliest surviving piece of Georgian literature.

The allies were routed and Iberia was ravaged by Iranian punitive expeditions in 483 and 484, forcing Vakhtang into flight to Roman-controlled Lazica (modern western Georgia).

The chronology of this period is confused, but by 518 an Iranian viceroy had been installed at the Iberian town of Tiflis, founded—according to Georgian tradition—by Vakhtang and designated as the country's future capital.

According to the LVG, Vakhtang died fighting an Iranian invading army at the hands of his renegade slave who shot him through an armpit defect of his armor.

If Toumanoff's identification of Procopius’ Gurgenes with Vakhtang is true, the king might have ended his reign in 522 by taking refuge in Lazica, where he possibly died around the same time.

Two younger sons by Vakhtang's second marriage to the Roman lady Elene—Leon and Mihrdat—were enfeoffed of the southwestern Iberian provinces of Klarjeti and Javakheti in which Leon's progeny—the Guaramids—traditionally followed pro-Roman orientation.

[2] Toumanoff has inferred that the Samanazus, a 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 have been a corruption of words meaning "brother of Dachi" and so perhaps refers to Mihrdat.

[12] Before his death, the wounded King Vakhtang left the will to his son Dachi and to the Georgians: მე ესე რა წარვალ წინაშე ღმრთისა ჩემისა, და ვმადლობ სახელსა მისსა, რამეთუ არა დამაკლო [or: დამარხო] გამორჩეულთა წმიდათა მისთა.

Vakhtang is a subject of several folk poems and legends, extolling the king's perceived greatness, enormous physical strength, courage and devoutness to Christianity.

[15] Vakhtang has been credited with the foundation of several towns, castles, and monasteries across Georgia, including the nation's capital Tbilisi, where a street and a square bear his name, and a 1967 monument by the sculptor Elguja Amashukeli tops the Metekhi cliff.

The largest expansion of Iberia under Vakhtang I [ citation needed ]
Ruins of Ujarma, once an Iberian stronghold under Vakhtang
Vakhtang I Gorgasali on the 2014 Georgian postage stamp
Grave of Vakhtang I at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral .