Chosroid dynasty
dynasty
The Chosroid dynasty (a Latinization of Khosro[v]ianni, Georgian: ხოსრო[ვ]იანები), also known as the Iberian Mihranids, were a dynasty of kings and later presiding princes of the early Georgian state of Iberia from the 4th to the 9th centuries. The family, of Iranian Mihranid origin, accepted Christianity as their official religion c. 337 (or 319/326), and maneuvered between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Iran to retain a degree of independence. 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.
Origins
The Chosroids were a branch of the Mihranid princely family, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran, who were distantly related to the Sasanians, and whose two other branches were soon placed on the thrones of Gogarene and Gardman, the two Caucasian principalities where the three nations – Armenians, Albanians, and Georgians – commingled.
According to the Georgian Chronicles, the first Chosroid king Mirian III (Mihran) (ruled 284–361 AD) was installed, through his marriage to an Iberian princess Abeshura (daughter of the last Georgian Arsacid king Aspacures I), on the throne of Iberia by his father whom the Georgian chronicles refer to as "Chosroes", Great King of Iran. Another medieval Georgian chronicle, Conversion of Kartli, is at odds with the tradition of Life of the Kings of the Georgian Chronicles and identifies Mirian as the son of King Lev, successor of King Aspacures I. Lev is unattested elsewhere.
Early Chosroids
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.
As an Iranian vassal king, Mirian III (ruled 284–361), the founder of the Chosroid dynasty, participated in the Sassanid war against the Roman Empire. However, in the Peace of Nisibis of 298, Rome was acknowledged its suzerainty over eastern Georgia, but recognized Mirian as the king of Iberia.
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