Dadiani, Tsotne

(died c. 1260) was a Georgian nobleman of the House of Dadiani and one of the leading political figures in the time of Mongol ascendancy in Georgia. Around 1246, he was part of a failed plot aimed at overthrowing the Mongol hegemony, but survived arrest and torture in captivity that befell upon his fellow conspirators when their designs to stage a rebellion was betrayed to the Mongols. A story from the medieval Georgian annals about Tsotne’s insistence on sharing his accomplices’ fate moved the Mongols to mercy.

Other chronicles tell about his self-sacrificing move (he was killed by being coated with honey and left to be eaten by insects) to save his associates from Mongol captivity. This made him one of the most popular historical figures in Georgia and a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church.