Demetre II

Demetre II was king of Abkhazia in the third quarter of the tenth century, the third son of Giorgi II, remembered chiefly for blinding his brother Teodos and for dying without heirs, which opened the way for the Bagrationi succession. The Chronicle of Kartli says that after Leon III died on campaign, his brother Demetre ascended the throne and established his sway over Kartli, but that some time passed before he settled the affairs of his kingdom, because his brother Teodos was in Byzantium and certain men called on him to challenge Demetre. Giorgi II had sent Teodos and another son, Bagrat, to Constantinople precisely to avoid such a contest.

Teodos landed in Samtskhe and raised the Meskhian nobles, but Demetre's army routed him in a surprise attack. Teodos fled to the fortress of Dzama in Kartli, where Demetre's troops besieged him for about three months before letting him depart under oath; he passed a year with David III Kuropalates in Tao and then went to Kvirike II of Kakheti. Demetre now sent envoys proposing that the brothers rule jointly, as he and Leon had done, and Teodos returned under an oath sworn by the Katholikos before the Living Pillar at Mtskheta. The chronicler writes that King Demetre "forgot the intercession of God and men," broke his oath, seized Teodos, and had his eyes gouged out. The people of the realm, outraged, tried to set up another brother, derisively nicknamed the Straw King, but failed, for Demetre was strong and valiant.

The chronicle records nothing else of his rule and gives no dates. The Divan of the Abkhazian Kings allots him seven years; Toumanoff places his reign about 969 to 976, Georgian historians about 967 to 975. When he died the country, seeing that he had left no successor in Abkhazia or Kartli, made the blinded Teodos king. Within a few years the nobility replaced Teodos with their sister Gurandukht's son, Bagrat III of Georgia, and the crown of Abkhazia passed to the Bagrationi.