Titans of History

BASIL THE BULGAR SLAYER

957/8–1025

The emperor did not relent, but every year marched into Bulgaria and laid waste and ravaged all before him … The emperor blinded the Bulgarian captives—around 15,000 they say—and he ordered every hundred to be led back … by a one-eyed man.

John Skylitzes, late 11th-century Byzantine historian

Basil II was one of the most powerful, effective and brilliant—if merciless—rulers of the Byzantine empire, the ultimate hero-monster. A remarkably successful statesman and soldier, perennially engaged in warfare, Basil—who never married or fathered children—reigned for fifty years, expanding his empire to its greatest extent. He converted the Russians to Christianity, defeated the Bulgars, conquered the Caucasus and patronized the arts.

Accounts of Basil’s appearance tally well with his brutal persona. Athletic in build, with a round face, bushy mustache and piercing blue eyes, he had a habit of twirling his whiskers between his fingers whenever he was angry or agitated—a frequent occurrence given his explosive temper. Reportedly he chose his words sparingly, barking rather than speaking them, in accordance with his generally abrupt manner. Never one to relax, he was always on guard for enemies, his right hand invariably poised to reach for his sword. He scorned jewelry, dressing in armor and eating the same rations as his troops, promising to look after their children if they died in battle for him.

Basil was the grandson of Constantine VII and the son of Romanos II. But Byzantine power politics were treacherous and the early years of Basil’s life were marked by intrigue and rebellion. Romanos II had died in 963, leaving five-year-old Basil and his younger brother Constantine as the joint emperors; although Constantine would succeed Basil in 1025 and rule in his own right for three years, he did not play an active part in Basil’s reign, accepting his brother’s supremacy and preferring to watch the chariot racing at the Constantinople Hippodrome.

In 963, however, Basil was too young to rule the empire himself so his mother Theophano married a general in the army, who became Emperor Nikephoros II in 963. In 969, Theophano had Nikephoros murdered by her next lover, John Tzimisces, who also became emperor until his death in 976. Basil, now eighteen, finally acceded to the throne, but he soon faced open rebellion led by two ambitious landowners: first, Bardas Skleros, whose armies were swiftly destroyed in 979, and second, Bardas Phakos, whose forces were defeated in battle in April 989 after two years of fighting. Legend has it that Basil sat patiently on his horse, with his sword in one hand and a picture of the Virgin Mary in the other, preparing to face Phakos in one-to-one combat, before the latter suddenly died of a stroke.

Still a young man, Basil—who had demanded Phakos’ severed head as a trophy—had shown himself to be a brave and ruthless combatant, not afraid to lead his armies into battle. Nonetheless, government of the empire remained largely in the hands of his uncle, the eunuch Basil Lekanpenos, the grand chamberlain of the imperial palace, so Basil accused him of secretly sympathizing with the rebel cause, and exiled him from Byzantium in 985. Distrustful of the established elite, Basil preferred to offer patronage and protection to small farmers in return for providing military service and regular taxes. He systematically toppled any other potential rivals, confiscating their lands and money to help fund his relentless military campaigns.

In 995, angered by Arab incursions into Byzantine territory, he gathered 40,000 men and attacked Syria—securing it for the Empire for the next 75 years. In the process, he sacked Tripoli and nearly reached Palestine and Jerusalem. His mortal enemy, however, was the equally ambitious and self-styled Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria, who had used the distractions of the Byzantine civil wars to extend his own empire from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, swallowing up swathes of Byzantine territory. Basil’s early forays against the Bulgarians, such as the siege of Sofia in 986, had been costly and unsuccessful, leading to the disastrous ambush at the Gates of Trajan, in which thousands of his soldiers were lost and he barely escaped alive. From 1001, however, having eradicated his domestic enemies, Basil began to eat back into the territory conquered by Samuel, soon regaining Macedonia. Success was steady rather than spectacular until a massive victory at the Battle of Kleidon, on July 29, 1014, Basil’s forces taking Samuel’s capital.

As a brutal denouement to the campaign, Basil lined up the defeated prisoners and had them blinded. In a macabre gesture, he left one eye for every hundred men so that the hapless troops could find their way back to their homes. A reported 15,000 shuffled away in pathetic columns, wounded, blinded and utterly terrorized. According to the 11th-century historian John Skylitzes, the tsar fainted after seeing his soldiers return and died of a stroke. In this single horrifying moment, Basil earned his epithet Bulgar Slayer.