Leon III

Leon III was king of Abkhazia in the middle of the tenth century, the son and successor of Giorgi II and the last of the Abkhazian kings whose reign the Georgian chronicle describes as a period of strength rather than decline. He first appears as eristavi, or viceroy, of Kartli, a post his father gave him after the rebellion and death of his elder brother Konstantini, an event modern scholars place in 926. From Kartli he fought Kakheti at his father's urging: the Chronicle of Kartli says that when Kvirike II, the bishop-prince of Kakheti, saw he could not resist, he presented himself to Leon and surrendered the fortress of Ujarma, and that Leon's attempt to marry his daughter to Kvirike's son David ended when the princess died soon afterward.

As king he resumed the war. He stationed a great army on the Aragvi and ravaged Mukhnari, Kherki, and Bazaleti, but fell ill on the campaign, returned home, and died. The Divan of the Abkhazian Kings gives him a reign of nine years; Toumanoff dates it about 960 to 969, while Georgian historians prefer 957 to 967. He left no son, and the throne passed to his brother Demetre II, and after him to another brother, Teodos II; the chronicle names both plainly as his brothers, sons of Giorgi II, not as his sons.

Leon was a builder in the family tradition. The cathedral of Mokvi in Abkhazia is attributed to him, and an inscription at Kumurdo in Javakheti records that its cathedral was built in 964 in his reign, evidence that his authority reached into the southern Georgian lands bordering Tao. Through his sister Gurandukht, wife of the Bagrationi prince Gurgen, he was uncle of Bagrat III of Georgia, who inherited the Abkhazian crown after the brothers had died out.