John I Tzimiskes (969–76) was crowned only after he had agreed to the patriarch’s demand that he do penance for the murder of his predecessor Nikephoros and separate from Nikephoros’s Empress Theophano, who was sent away to a monastery. He then married Theodora, the daughter of Constantine VII, and, like his predecessor, he assumed the role of guardian of the young emperors. Civil affairs were left in the hands of Basil the parakoimomenos. Tzimiskes had to put down several revolts from aristocratic rivals, and his greatest ally was his brother-in-law, Bardas Skleros. Although Tzimiskes himself was, like his predecessor, a member of the military aristocracy, he sought actively to prevent the alienation of private peasant lands and the transformation of the peasants into paroikoi. The legislation to do this was already in place, and Tsimiskes used military power to round up the peasants settled on private estates and force them to return to their villages. In this he can hardly have been fully successful and, in effect, the peasants so treated had become essentially the paroikoi of the state.

Tzimiskes had been left with a difficult situation in the Balkans, where the Russian prince Svjatoslav had secured increasing authority over Bulgaria. In 971 Tzimiskes occupied the Bulgarian capital of Great Preslav and took the tsar Boris captive. He then moved on the city of Silistria, which Svjatoslav had occupied. After a desperate siege and an equally desperate resistance, Tzimiskes prevailed and Svjatoslav was forced to withdraw. He was killed shortly thereafter, and Tzimiskes was in effective control of Bulgaria. Tzimiskes was also able to deal successfully with the western emperor Otto II by agreeing to the marriage alliance his predecessor had rejected but sending, not an imperial princess born in the purple, but his own relative Theophano, who became the wife of Otto II in 972. This marriage was to have a significant effect on East– West relations, especially in the impact of Byzantine ideas on the western court. Theophano had considerable influence on her son, Otto III, who became western emperor in 983, and who copied Byzantine ceremonial and asserted the supremacy of the emperor over the pope.

In the East Tzimiskes sought to consolidate and expand the conquests made by Nikephoros Phokas. In this he was opposed by the Fatimids of Egypt, who had also sought to exploit the power vacuum in Syria. Tzimiskes, however, relieved Fatimid pressure on Antioch and pressed far into Syria and the Holy Land, taking Damascus, Tiberias, Caesarea, and stopping not far from the walls of Jerusalem. He returned victorious to Byzantium, conquering Beyrut and Sidon on the way. Unfortunately for the empire, this vigorous and successful emperor suddenly took ill and died, early in 976.It was in this context that Basil II, then 18 years of age, at last took power in his own name. It is true that throughout his reign he shared the throne with his younger brother Constantine VIII (two years his junior), but power always was effectively in Basil’s hands, and Constantine was content to enjoy palace life and leave the burdens of rule to his brother. For years, at least since the death of Romanos II in 968, members of the military aristocracy, who ruled in the names of the legitimate Macedonian emperors, had controlled the empire. Now, in 976, the domestikos Bardos Skleros expected to continue that tradition, and he rose in revolt when Basil II declared himself fit to rule on his own. There followed a monumental clash in which the young emperor displayed his own determination and strength of character, helped as he was by the cleverness of Basil the parakoimomenos. Skleros at first defeated all the forces sent against him and by 978 he had all of Asia Minor under his control. The parakoimomenos, however, formed an alliance with the head of a rival aristocratic family, Bardas Phokas, nephew of the emperor Nikephoros Phokas, and they were able to defeat Skleros and force him to flee to the caliphate.During the next few years Basil the parakoimomenos was essentially in control, as he had been for years, but Basil II finally sought to establish his independence and, despite a plot by the eunuch for Bardas Phokas to seize power, the emperor triumphed, and the venerable parakoimomenos was finally removed from power and exiled in 985.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the confused situation in Constantinople, a revolt against Byzantine power had broken out in the Balkans, led by the Kometopouloi, the four sons of a provincial governor in Macedonia. This revolt was welcomed by the local people, and leadership was finally assumed by Samuel, the youngest of the Kometopouloi, who was founder of the second period of Bulgarian greatness in the Middle Ages. Even though the focus of power in this state was at Ochrid, in Slavic Macedonia (far from the earlier center at Pliska), both Samuel and the Byzantines regarded it as the direct descendant of the empire of Symeon some 150 years earlier. One of the first things Samuel did was to restore the independent Bulgarian patriarchate that had been abolished by Tzimiskes.

Samuel sought to expand his territory to the south, with attacks on Serres and Thessaloniki, and in 985 or 986 he succeeded in taking Larissa (in Thessaly). Basil II counterattacked in 986, but his forces were defeated. In part as a result of this failure, members of the Byzantine aristocracy revolted. Bardas Skleros returned from exile and again sought the imperial throne and, as before, he was opposed by Bardas Phokas. On this occasion, however, Phokas too revolted and had himself proclaimed emperor (987). Phokas quickly became the main pretender, and by the beginning of 988 he was prepared for an assault on the capital. In this situation Basil II called on the Russian prince Vladimir (the son of Svjatoslav) for assistance. The latter dispatched a force of 6,000 warriors, presumably Vikings from Russia, and, led by the emperor in person, they dealt a decisive defeat to Phokas, who died in battle the next year. Bardas Skleros once again rose in revolt, but this was quickly put down, and Basil II’s throne was secured, largely by help from his Russian ally.

As a reward for his assistance, Vladimir was offered Basil’s sister Anna as his bride, on condition that the prince and his people accept baptism from Constantinople. This was an enormous compromise by the Byzantines and an indication of how much the emperor valued his alliance with the Russians: no purple-born princess had previously ever been offered to a foreign ruler. Certainly, from the Russian point of view, the alliance was equally positive, and the conversion of Olga (Vladimir’s grandmother) some years earlier and the strength of Byzantine arms under Tzimiskes had undoubtedly convinced Vladimir that the future of his state lay in alliance with Byzantium. The Russian Primary Chronicle, of course, explains the conversion in terms of a Russian search for a religion best suited to the Russian temperament. This story, which certainly cannot be literally true, says that the prince sent out a body of ten officials to visit the homelands of the great religions of the time: the Volga Bulgars (who were Muslims), the Germans (who were Catholic Christians), and the “Greeks” (who were Orthodox Christians). The emissaries found objections in the first two religions, but they reported that in the church of Constantinople, presumably Hagia Sophia, “we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men.” In fact, it is likely that Vladimir realized – as had many of his Slavic predecessors – that alliance with one Christian power or another was all but inevitable and that the Byzantine political tradition provided important benefits for the consolidation of his own domestic power and the cultural advancement of the principality. The Byzantines temporarily rethought the awarding of a purple-born princess to such a ruler, but in 989 Vladimir made a military show of force in Cherson, and the marriage was solemnly celebrated, Vladimir accepted baptism, and the conversion of Russia was begun.

In the view of the historian Psellos, Basil’s character had been radically changed as a result of the long struggle with Bardas Phokas, Bardas Skleros, and the landed aristocracy. From a pleasure-loving youth he became a hardened and resolute politician and commander; he was dour and short-tempered and – unlike his forefathers – he had no interest in literature or learning. In keeping with his personality he dedicated himself completely to the task of ruling the empire, and, most important, he never married and had no sons to succeed him as emperor.

In terms of land policy Basil II was, not surprisingly, one of the most outspoken critics of the growth of aristocratic holdings and a defender of peasant rights to keep their arms. In this regard, he restated the policies of his predecessors forbidding the alienation of peasant land, and he even withdrew the provision of a 30-year limit for the return of such purchases. He went even further than his predecessors and took the novel step of making the dynatoi (powerful landowners) responsible for payment of the allelengyon, the default payment for insolvent peasants that had previously been borne by the community as a whole. He was equally stringent in his attempt to prevent the alienation of peasant land by monasteries and the church. All of these efforts, of course, flew in the face of the dominant economic and social trends of the day, and – despite the emperor’s occasionally violent attempts at enforcement – it is questionable whether such a policy could have been successful. Basil’s actions, however, were the strongest of the attempts by the Macedonian emperors to defend the peasants against the growing power of the landed magnates.

In foreign affairs, Basil II’s greatest challenge was Samuel’s revived Bulgarian Empire, and he approached this struggle with the same methodical determination that characterized all other aspects of his reign. In 991 Basil invaded Samuel’s territory, but his successful campaign was soon interrupted by trouble in the East, where the Fatimids threatened Byzantine positions in northern Syria. Basil traveled to the East and was able to restore Byzantine supremacy with a significant victory in 995. Samuel, meanwhile, was able to take advantage of Basil’s absence and his armies advanced south into Greece, reaching as far as the Peloponnesos. On his return to the Balkans in 1001 Basil embraced the struggle with Samuel. Basil first moved against the old Bulgarian capital of Pliska, and his success there cut Samuel’s empire in half. The emperor then turned south into Macedonia, winning victory after victory. After four years of nearly ceaseless warfare the Byzantine Empire was once again supreme in the Balkans, but Samuel still held out and the war continued at a reduced level. Finally, in 1014, a great battle at Kleidion (on the Strymon River north of Serres in Macedonia) resulted in the complete victory of Basil and the capture, allegedly, of 14,000 prisoners. Although Samuel escaped the debacle, he could not survive the aftermath: Basil – afterwards always known as Bulgaroktonos (the “Bulgar-slayer”) – blinded the prisoners and sent them off to Samuel in groups of 100 men, each led by a one-eyed guide. When the tsar viewed this sight, he suffered a stroke and died almost immediately afterwards. [1]

There was some further resistance, first from Samuel’s son and then from other relatives, but in 1018 Bulgaria surrendered completely and Basil entered Ochrid in triumph. After a struggle of nearly 30 years Basil had accomplished his goal, and the whole of the southern Balkan peninsula was under Byzantine control – for the first time since the seventh century. Contrary to the policies of his predecessors, he did not leave Bulgaria as an allied client state, but rather annexed the center of Samuel’s empire, dividing it into themes. The outlying areas, such as Croatia and Dioclea (including Rascia and Bosnia), continued to be ruled by native princes, who were seen as Byzantine vassals. Basil sought to respect the special importance of Bulgaria, and, although he suppressed the independent patriarchate of Ochrid, he made the archbishop autocephalous, meaning that he was not subject to the authority of the patriarchate of Constantinople, but, in this case at least, he was directly responsible to the emperor himself.

After his unprecedented victory in the Balkans, and although he was well over 60 years of age, Basil II turned his attention to affairs in Asia, where he successfully intervened in Armenia and established new themes and other military districts in a wide arc from north to south, extending well into Mesopotamia. Toward the end of his life Basil turned to the West, where Otto III was well disposed to cooperate with Byzantium. The western emperor had even requested an imperial bride, and an agreement was reached, but Otto died in 1002, putting a halt to this initiative. Basil, meanwhile, reorganized Byzantine territories in Italy, and he was making preparations for a great campaign against the Arabs in the West when he died in December of 1025.

[1] Basil and the mass blinding

Now regarding Basil and the mass blinding, I recommend P. Stephenson’s last work, The legend of Basil the Bulgar-slayer, Cambridge University Press 2003. It is an excellent work on the representation of power and might in the eyes of the Byzantines and on the use and misuse of national and ethnic history. Simply put, Stephenson flatly denies that the whole incident ever took place (better: that if it ever took place, given Basil’s penchant for blinding his foes, it never happened on such a dramatic scale), with lots of convincing reasons, and that he fought in the Balkans far more sporadically than his official image suggests. He argues, again with merit, that Basil’s portrait as the Bulgar slayer, a surname associated with him only centuries after his death and not during his lifetime, served to galvanize the Byzantine first, and especially to spur the ambition and pride of modern Greece, becoming an icon of Greek might and ruthlessness in the struggle for Macedonia and in the Balkan wars, especially the second one, obviously.