Simon I the Great (), also known as Svimon () (1537–1611), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a Georgian king of Kartli from 1556 to 1569 and again from 1578 to 1599. His first tenure was marked by war against the Persian domination of Georgia. In 1569 he was captured by the Persians, and spent nine years in captivity. In 1578 he was released and reinstalled in Kartli. During this period (i.e. his second tenure), he fought as a Persian subject against the Ottoman domination of Georgia. In 1599 Simon I was captured by the Ottomans and died in captivity. During 1557 to 1569 he was known as Mahmud Khan () and from 1578 to 1599 as Shahnavaz Khan (). First reign and struggle against Persia The eldest son of the heroic king Luarsab I of Kartli and Tamar of Imereti, he commanded his father's army at the Battle of Garisi against the Persian invaders, 1556. He was proclaimed by his father co-ruler and heir apparent just prior to the action. Though Luarsab was mortally wounded, the battle was won by Simon, who soon ascended the throne on the death of his father. As the Kartlian capital Tbilisi remained in the Persian hands, Simon had a residence in Gori, whence he ruled over the territories recaptured from the occupiers. In 1559, he allied himself with another Georgian sovereign, Levan I of Kakheti, and married his daughter Nestan-Darejan. Beginning in 1560, Simon launched a series of battles to recover Tbilisi, but in April 1561 suffered a defeat at the Battle of Tsikhedidi, which cost life to his brother-in-law and ally, Prince Giorgi of Kakheti. His brother, David, recently submitted to the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I, converted to Islam, and returned with a Persian army to claim the crown. Simon blockaded Tbilisi and won the battles at Dighomi (1567) and Samadlo (1569), but he was finally defeated and taken prisoner at P'artskhisi, 1569. David, now known as Daud Khan, was made by Persians a tributary king of Kartli. Simon was sent to Persia where he refused to convert to Islam and was imprisoned at the fortress of Alamut for nine years. Second reign and struggle against the Ottomans When the peace between the Safavids and the Ottomans collapsed and the Turkish general Lala Mustafa Pasha drove the Persians out of Georgia in 1578, it roused the Safavids to come to take further action.