David III of Tao, the Georgian Bagratid lord of the Armenian-Iberian borderlands, having given crucial assistance to Basil II against the rebel commander Bardas Skleros in 979, had been granted parts of the Armeno-Georgian marchlands that centered on Thither Tao / Tayk, as well as several northern districts of western Armenia, including Theodosioupolis (Karin; now Erzurum, Turkey), Basean, Hark’, Apahunik’, Mardali (Mardaghi), Khaldoyarich, and Ch’ormayari.

However, David’s rebuff of Basil in Bardas Phokas’ revolt of 987 had evoked Constantinople’s distrust of the Caucasian rulers.

After the failure of the revolt, David had been forced to make Basil II the legatee of his extensive possessions.

Irregular groups of Turkmen warriors (also called Oguz, Ghuzz, or Oghuz), originally from Central Asia, have begun to move into Azerbaijan and to encroach upon the Armenian polities of Vaspurakan, …

…Ani, and …

…Tao, and along the easternmost border of the Empire, the lands directly controlled by Constantinople.

The fragmented petty kingdoms of Armenia have already begun to be destroyed from the west: the province of Taron had been annexed to the Constantinople’s empire in 968.

Armenian historians of this period speak of their adversaries as “… long-haired Turkmens armed with bow and lance on horses which flew like the wind … .” The Armenian princes appeal to Constantinople for protection from these forays, and Emperor Basil II has compelled David of Tao to bequeath him his lands on his death.

Basil gathers his inheritance upon David’s death in 1000, forcing the successor Georgian Bagratid ruler Bagrat III to recognize the new rearrangement.

The possessions of David III of Tao after his murder by his nobles in 1000, had passed to Emperor Basil II according to the previous agreement.

Gurgen, now reigning as King of Kings of the Georgians in parts of the southwestern Kartlian lands, had met with Basil but, unable to prevent the annexation of David’s realm, had been forced to recognize the new borders.

On this occasion, Gurgen’s son Bagrat had been bestowed with the imperial title of kouropalates, and Gurgen with that of magistros, actually competing titles since the dignity conferred upon the son is more esteemed than that granted to the father.

This was done by the emperor, as the Georgian chronicles relate, to turn Gurgen against Bagrat, but he seriously miscalculated.

Later the same year, Gurgen had attempted to take David Kuropalates’ succession by force, but he had to retreat in the face of the Byzantine commander Nikephoros Ouranos, dux of Antioch.

Gurgen dies in 1008, and Bagrat succeeds him as King of Kings of the Georgians, becoming thus the first king of a unified realm of Abkhazia and Kartli (in their broadest sense these two include Abkhazia proper/Abasgia, Egrisi/Samegrelo, Imereti, Svaneti, Racha-Lechkhumi, Guria, Ajaria, Kartli proper, Hither Tao, Klarjeti, Shavsheti, Meskheti, and Javakheti) what is to be henceforth known as Sakartvelo—"all-Georgia".

Sumbat III of Klarjeti, a son of Bagrat (died 988), son of Sumbat II of Klarjeti, had succeeded upon the death of his childless paternal uncle David II as the sovereign of Klarjeti, a position which he had shared with his brother Gurgen.

The tenth-century Georgian chronicler of the Bagratids, Sumbat Davitis-Dze, accords them a royal title—klarjni khelmtsipeni.

Sumbat and Gurgen had ruled over a portion of the hereditary Bagratid territory which remained outside the control of their distant cousin Bagrat III, who had become a king of a unified Georgia in 1008.

In 1011, the brothers are invited by Bagrat to negotiations at the castle of Panaskerti, but are arrested and held captive in the castle of Tmogvi, where they are soon put to death.

Their possessions pass to Bagrat and his progeny.

Their children—Bagrat, son of Sumbat, and Demetre, son of Gurgen—flee to Constantinople, whence they will try to retrieve patrimonial lands with imperial aid, for the last time in 1032, but to no avail.

Bagrat III’s son, George I, inherits a longstanding claim to the succession of David III of Tao.

While Basil is preoccupied with his Bulgarian campaigns, George gains momentum to invade Tao/Tayk and Basean in 1014.