The childhood of the future George II of Georgia had coincided with the civil war between his father, Bagrat IV, and the rebellious Georgian feudal lord Liparit, who had succeeded in temporarily driving Bagrat into the protection of Constantinople, and had crowned George as king at the Ruisi Cathedral between 1050 and 1053, under the regency of Bagrat's sister Gurandukht.

In fact, Liparit became the master of nearly half of the Georgian kingdom and the most powerful dynast in the country.

By 1060, Bagrat IV had been able to secure the throne and made George his heir apparent, to whom the emperor in Constantinople had attached the title of curopalates.

In 1070, Prince George, at the head of a combined Georgian-Alan army, had inflicted a decisive defeat on the Shaddadid emir of Arran, Fadl II, and ravaged his possessions at Ganja.

George succeeds as King of Georgia upon the death of his father in 1072 and receives the title of nobelissimos and later that of sebastos from the emperor.

Gregory Pakourianos, whose origins are a matter for scholarly dispute, is believed to have hailed from the region of Tao or Tayk, which had been annexed by Constantinople to the theme of Iberia in 1001.

According to the contemporary historian Anna Komnena, who knew Pakourianos personally, Gregory was "descended from a noble Armenian family," while the Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa, from the twelfth century, saying Pakourianos was of "Vrats'" origin, had in mind the religious affiliation of Pakourianos.

Gregory himself proclaimed that he belonged to "the glorious people of the Iberians" and insisted his monks of the Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bachkovo, which he had founded, to know the Georgian language.

According Anna Komnena, Pakourianos was tiny of body but a mighty warrior.

In 1064, he had participated in the unsuccessful defense of Ani against the Seljuq leader Alp Arslan and his allies: the Caucasian Georgians headed by King Bagrat IV of Georgia and Albanians headed by King Goridzhan.

He has served afterwards under Michael VII Doukas in various responsible positions on both the eastern and the western frontiers of the empire.

Since 1071, he has been a governor of the Theme of Iberia.

As the Seljuq advance had forced the imperial forces to evacuate the eastern Anatolian fortresses and the Theme of Iberia, he cedes control over Kars to King George II of Georgia in 1072-1073.

This will not help to stem the Turkish advance, however, and the area will become a battleground of the Georgian-Seljuq wars.

George II faces a major aristocratic revolt led by Niania Kvabulis-dze, Ivane Liparitis-dze, and Vardan of Svaneti in 1073.

Although the king is victorious, he has to buy the rebels’ loyalty through generously awarding them additional estates.

Soon, Georgia is attacked again by the Seljuqs, the nomadic Turkic people, who will prove to be a major menace to George II’s reign.

George II, following the 1073 devastation of Kartli (central Georgia) by the Seljuqs, had in the following year successfully repelled an invasion commanded a Turkish general left by the sultan in charge of the Caucasus.

The king had also secured the formal return of Upper Tao/Tayk (Theme of Iberia), a frontier region which had been a bone of contention between Georgia and the Empire early in the eleventh century, by the imperial governor, Gregory Pakourianos, who had begun to evacuate the region shortly after the 1071 disaster inflicted by the Seljuqs on the Byzantine army at Manzikert.

On this occasion, George had been bestowed with the imperial title of Caesaros, granted the fortress of Kars and put in charge of the Imperial Eastern limits.

This does not help to stem the Seljuq advance, however.

The Seljuq sultan Malik Shah I surges into Georgia in 1076 and reduces many settlements to ruins.

George, harassed by the massive Turkic influx, known in Georgian history as didi turkoba, or the Great Turkish Invasion, from 1079/80 onward, is pressured into submitting to Malik-Shah to ensure a precious degree of peace at the price of an annual tribute.

George is even able to garner Seljuq military support in his campaign aimed at bringing the eastern Georgian principality of Kakheti, which has long resisted the Bagratid attempts of annexation, within a unified Georgian realm.

However, tired with a protracted siege of the Kakhetian stronghold of Vezhini, George abandons the campaign when snow falls, and headed for the Ajameti forests to ease his disappointment by hunting.

The Seljuq auxiliaries also lift the siege and plunder the fertile Iori Valley in Kakheti.

Aghsartan I, king of Kakheti, goes to the sultan to declare his submission, and in token of loyalty embraces Islam, thus winning Seljuq protection against the aspirations of the Georgian crown.

The wavering character and incompetent political decisions of George II of Georgia, coupled with the Seljuq yoke, have brought the Kingdom of Georgia into a profound crisis, which climaxes in the aftermath of a disastrous earthquake that had struck Georgia in 1088.

George hands over the crown to his vigorous sixteen-year old son David in 1089.

This changeover is shrouded in mystery and is mentioned only in passing in the Georgian chronicles.

All that is recorded is that George crowned his son as king with his own hands, after which he disappears from the chronicle.

He was most probably forced by his nobles, in a palace coup masterminded by the powerful minister Bishop Giorgi Chkondideli, to abdicate in favor of David.

George is mentioned in prayers dated to 1203 as "king of kings, and caesar of all the East and West", suggesting that he was still alive and given some titles by his reigning son, but exercised no real power.