David was the eldest son of
Constantine II, whom he succeeded as king of Kartli in 1505. Although Constantine had recognised the independence of the breakaway Georgian kingdoms of
Imereti and
Kakheti, the rivalry among these polities continued under David. He had to defend his kingdom against the attacks by
Alexander II of Imereti in the west, and
George II of Kakheti in the east. In August 1509, Alexander took fort-city
Gori and the northwestern corner of Kartli, but had to abandon the occupied lands to David due to the
Ottoman raid on Imereti in 1510. A year later, George of Kakheti surged into Kartli, but failed to capture the king in a besieged castle of
Ateni. In 1513, George invaded again, only to be defeated and taken prisoner by David’s younger brother
Bagrat I of Mukhrani. He died in captivity and his kingdom was annexed to Kartli. In 1518, the
Persian shah Ismail I of the newly established
Safavid Empire, sent in an army under
Div Sultan Rumlu, who was joined by the Georgian prince
Qvarqvare III Jaqeli,
atabeg of
Samtskhe. The invaders occupied
Surami and Gori, and David had to make peace with the
Persians and to promise to pay tribute. Meanwhile, the Kakhetian nobles used the opportunity to install
Levan, son of the late king George II, as their king. David besieged the Maghrani Castle where Levan had taken positions, but soon had to abandon the siege as the
Qizilbash appeared again in the Georgian lands. David recognised Lavan as the king of Kakheti in order to win his support against the invaders. In 1522, he refused to convert to
Islam as
Shah Ismail had demanded. A new
Persian invasion ensued, led this time personally by the
Shah. David and his son,
Luarsab, offered him a fierce resistance at the Battle of Teleti, but were finally outnumbered and defeated. The Kartlian capital
Tbilisi was taken by treachery and garrisoned by a large Persian force, making east Georgia nominally fall for the first time under Safavid rule. On the death of
Ismail in 1524, David liberated
Tbilisi and expelled the
Persians from the country. The
Safavid Persians would later try to retake Tbilisi. In 1525, he reconquered
Aghjakala,
Lower Kartli, and massacred all the Turkoman Qizilbash who had settled there. The same year, he abdicated the throne in favor of his younger brother
George IX, and retired to a monastery under the name of Damiane. David X died in 1526 and was buried at the
Svetitskhoveli Cathedral at
Mtskheta. ==Family==