Demetrius ( ka, დემეტრე, ) (died 1042) was a Georgian prince of the Bagrationi royal dynasty, and a claimant to the throne of Georgia. He was the younger son of

George I of Georgia :''There was also a Giorgi I, Catholicos of Kartli who ruled in 677–678.'' George I ( ka, გიორგი I, tr) (998 or 1002 – 16 August 1027), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 2nd king ('' mepe'') of the Kingdom of Georgia from 1014 ...

by his second wife Alda, daughter of the king of

Alania Alania was a medieval kingdom of the Iranian Alans ( Proto-Ossetians) that flourished between the 9th–13th centuries in the Northern Caucasus, roughly in the location of the latter-day Circassia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and modern North Ossetia ...

Biography

After the death of

George I George I or 1 may refer to: People * Patriarch George I of Alexandria (fl. 621–631) * George I of Constantinople (d. 686) * George of Beltan (d. 790) * George I of Abkhazia (ruled 872/3–878/9) * George I of Georgia (d. 1027) * Yuri Dolgoruk ...

, some Georgian nobles wished to enthrone Demetrius instead of his half-brother Bagrat IV (r. 1027–1072), but to no avail. Alda and Demetrius lived in their fief at Anakopia, a fortified maritime town in

Abkhazia Abkhazia, officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a List of states with limited recognition, partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It cover ...

, which had been bequeathed to them by the late king George I. The efforts by Bagrat's mother Mariam to win Demetrius's loyalty to the crown went in vain. Threatened by Bagrat, Alda defected to the Byzantines and surrendered Anakopia to the emperor

Romanos III Romanos III Argyros (; Latinized Romanus III Argyrus; 968 – 11 April 1034), or Argyropoulos, was Byzantine Emperor from 1028 until his death in 1034. He was a Byzantine noble and senior official in Constantinople when the dying Constantine ...

who honored her son Demetrius with the rank of ''

magistros The (Latin; ; ) was one of the most senior administrative officials in the Later Roman Empire and the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire. In Byzantium, the office was eventually transformed into a senior honorary rank, simply called ''magist ...

''. This happened in 1033. In 1039, Demetrius returned to Georgia with Byzantine troops. Liparit IV, of the Liparitid clan, the most powerful noble in Georgia, supported the rebellious prince and launched initially a successful campaign against Bagrat's army.Robert Bedrosian, "Liparit IV Orbēlean", p. 586. In: Joseph Reese Strayer (1983), ''

Dictionary of the Middle Ages The ''Dictionary of the Middle Ages'' is a 13-volume encyclopedia of the Middle Ages published by the American Council of Learned Societies between 1982 and 1989. It was first conceived and started in 1975 with American medieval historian Jos ...

''. Scribner, . However, Demetrius died unexpectedly in 1042. Alda, with Demetrius’s son David, fled to her native

. The 18th-century Georgian scholar

Prince Vakhushti Vakhushti ( ka, ვახუშტი; 1696 – 1757) was a Georgians, Georgian royal prince (''batonishvili''), geographer, historian and cartographer. His principal historical and geographic works, ''Description of the Kingdom of Georgia'' and ...

argues that David’s descendants flourished in Alania and produced a line of local princes of which came

David Soslan David Soslan ( ), (died 1207) was a prince from Alania and second husband of Queen regnant Tamar, whom he married in 1189. He is chiefly known for his military exploits during Georgia's wars against its Muslim neighbors. Name David's second ...

, the second husband of Queen

Tamar of Georgia Tamar the Great ( ka, თამარ მეფე, tr , ; 1160 – 18 January 1213) queen regnant, reigned as the List of monarchs of Georgia#Kings of unified Georgia (1008–1490), Queen of Kingdom of Georgia, Georgia from 1184 to 1213, ...

(r. 1184–1213). Demetrius may also have had a daughter, Irene (died 1108), the official mistress of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus in the mid-1050s and then the wife of ''

sebastokrator ''Sebastokrator'' (, ; ; ), was a senior court title in the late Byzantine Empire. It was also used by other rulers whose states bordered the Empire or were within its sphere of influence (Bulgarian Empire, Serbian Empire). The word is a compound ...

'' Isaac Komnenos. Anakopia, ceded by Alda and Demetrius to the emperor, would remain under the Byzantine sway until being recovered by Bagrat’s son and successor George II in 1074. This happened after the

Battle of Manzikert The Battle of Manzikert or Malazgirt was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert, Iberia (theme), Iberia (modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, Turkey). The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army ...

(1071). Profiting by the defeat of the Byzantines at the hands of the

Seljukids The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; , ''Saljuqian'',) alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persian culture. The founder of the S ...

, Georgia regained a number of key territories lost to the Empire in the course of the 11th century, including Anakopia as well as the fortresses located in the Thema of Iberia.Mariam D. Lordkipanidze. "Concerning the History of Byzantine-Georgian Relations in the Seventies of the Eleventh Century", in: ''Actes du XVe congrès international d'études byzantines, Athènes, Septembre 1976'', 1979: 192-4.

References

{{authority control 11th-century people from Georgia (country) 1042 deaths Bagrationi dynasty of the Kingdom of Georgia Georgian princes Year of birth unknown Magistroi