Konstantini

Konstantini was the elder son of Giorgi II of Abkhazia and viceroy of Kartli, whose rebellion against his father and terrible death are told at length in the Chronicle of Kartli. Giorgi, having secured his throne, gave Kartli to Konstantini, and for three years he governed it. Then, the chronicler says, he began to nurse a grudge against his father and to seek the royal power for himself. When the plot was exposed he shut himself in the rock-cut fortress of Uplistsikhe with the Tbeli family and many other nobles. Giorgi came with his whole army, the kings of Tao, and Padla, the bishop-prince of Kakheti, and stormed the place for many days without effect, so many were its defenders.

The king then turned to deceit. Nobles of Sazvere, at his prompting, promised Konstantini that if he came out they would carry him to Abkhazia and make him king, and his father would stand aside. Against the advice of his own followers he believed them and slipped out at night on a raft on the Mtkvari. His escorts tried to seize him; he fled back toward the fortress, and in the confusion the pursuers fell into the river. At dawn a search found him hidden in a cleft of the rock. Brought before his father, he was punished cruelly: his eyes were put out, he was castrated, and he died. Giorgi let the Tbeli leave for Vaspurakan under his word of honor and gave Kartli to another son, the future Leon III.

The chronicle gives no dates; modern historians place his viceroyalty about 923 to 926. Konstantini left no known descendants, and the Abkhazian line continued through his brothers and, eventually, through his sister Gurandukht's son Bagrat III of Georgia.