06 — The Martyr King
The end of Vakhtang’s life and the ground of his veneration as a martyr: his final war against Persia and his death from an arrow-wound (c. 502/522), and the tradition of his dying confession of Christ that led the Church to honor him as a martyr-king. These two files treat the last battle and the martyric death, pinning the death to its uncertain date and the confession to its source.
Tradition: Georgian Orthodox
Vakhtang is venerated not merely as a holy king but as a martyr — a king who died for the faith — and that veneration rests on the tradition of his end: mortally wounded in his last war against the Zoroastrian empire he had resisted all his life, and dying with a confession of Christ on his lips. As with everything else in his story, the death comes to us through the later tradition and cannot be dated with certainty; the two files below report it as the tradition attests, distinguishing the credible historical core (a king who died of a battle-wound in war against Persia) from the hagiographic elaboration of the confession-scene (Thomson, Rewriting Caucasian History, 1996; Toumanoff, “Chronology of the Early Kings of Iberia,” Traditio 25, 1969).
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Last Battle | His final war against the Persians and his death from an arrow-wound — struck, in the Life’s account, in an unprotected part of his body — c. 502 or 522; the uncertain date under §3.5 and the credible core of a king who fell in war against Persia. |
| The Confession and the Martyric Death | The tradition of Vakhtang’s dying confession of Christ and his exhortation to his people, and his veneration as a martyr-king; how a death in battle became, in the Church’s memory, a martyrdom for the faith. |
See Also
- The Defense of Christian Iberia — the lifelong resistance that led to the last war
- A Warrior King as Saint — how the Church venerates a warrior who died in battle
- Methodology — the uncertain chronology and the handling of the death
References
- Thomson, Robert W. Rewriting Caucasian History: The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
- Toumanoff, Cyril. “Chronology of the Early Kings of Iberia.” Traditio 25 (1969): 1–33.
- Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. London: Reaktion, 2012.
- Lang, David Marshall. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. London: Mowbrays, 1976.