Constantine II was the son of
Prince Demetrius. In 1465, together with his uncle, the Georgian king
George VIII, Constantine was taken prisoner by the rebel prince
Qvarqvare II Jaqeli,
atabeg of
Samtskhe (principality in southern Georgia). He managed, however, to escape the captivity, and taking opportunity of the Imeretian king
Bagrat VI’s absence at the campaign in Kartli, vainly attempted to seize control of the Imeretian capital
Kutaisi. Despite the failure, he considered himself king and later won some power in Kartli. However, only with Bagrat’s death in 1478 was Constantine able to drive out Bagrat’s son,
Alexander II, and become king of Georgia, though already fragmented and torn apart by the bitter civil wars. In 1483, he was defeated by Qvarqvare II of Samtskhe at the
Battle of Aradeti. Alexander took advantage and established himself in Imereti but lost Kutaisi to Constantine again in 1484. In the winter of 1488, the
Ak Koyunlu Turkomans led by
Sufi Khalil Beg Mawsilu attacked Georgia’s capital
Tbilisi, and took the city after a long-lasted siege in February 1489. Though the foreign occupation of the capital did not last long, the situation was immediately exploited by Alexander who seized control of Kutaisi and the rest of Imereti. From 1490 to 1493, Constantine was compelled to
de jure recognise his cousin
Alexander I of Kakheti and Alexander II of Imereti as independent sovereigns and to grant Qvarqvare II significant autonomy. Constantine himself was left with Kartli as the extent of his kingdom. Thus, by the end of the 15th century, Georgia was divided into three independent kingdoms (
Kartli,
Kakheti, and
Imereti) and five autonomous principalities (
Samtskhe,
Mingrelia,
Guria,
Abkhazia, and
Svaneti). Between 1492–1496, Constantine attempted to win an international support to reunite the country and defend it against the increasingly aggressive
Muslim empires of
Ottoman Turkey and
Safavid Iran. For this purpose, Georgian ambassadors were sent to the
Burji sultan of
Egypt Qaitbay, and also to
Pope Alexander VI and
Isabella I of Castile. The embassies, however, proved to be fruitless. Upon the death of Qvargvare II's son Kaikhosro I, only two years after he ascended the throne of the Samtskhe principality, he was succeeded by his equally "pious" brother Mzechabuk. At the same time, the Iranian Safavids, led by the emerging king (
shah)
Ismail I were tempted to loot the feudal state, if only to distract himself from his main quarry;
Shirvan. In the same year, in 1500, Ismail I baited Constantine as well as king
Alexander II of Imereti to attack Ottoman possessions located nearby
Tabriz. ==Family==