General properties of a class of two-dimensional dilaton gravity (DG) theories with multi-exponential potentials are studied and a subclass of these theories, in which the equations of motion reduce to Toda and Liouville equations, is treated in deta
il. A combination of parameters of the equations should satisfy a certain constraint that is identified and solved for the general multi-exponential model. From the constraint it follows that in DG theories the integrable Toda equations, generally, cannot appear without accompanying Liouville equations. We also show how the wave-like solutions of the general Toda-Liouville systems can be simply derived. In the dilaton gravity theory, these solutions describe nonlinear waves coupled to gravity as well as static states and cosmologies. A special attention is paid to making the analytic structure of the solutions of the Toda equations as simple and transparent as possible, with the aim to gain a better understanding of realistic theories reduced to dimensions 1+1 and 1+0 or 0+1.
