Why was Basil II called the Bulgar-Slayer?
Basil II owes the name Bulgar-Slayer to the long, merciless war that ended the Bulgarian Empire. In 1014, at Kleidion, he trapped and destroyed the main Bulgarian army and, according to the chroniclers, blinded thousands of prisoners. The name itself came later and grew famous only after his death; Paul Stephenson ties it to the politics of the twelfth century. By 1018 Bulgaria was fully absorbed into the empire.
Basil II was among the greatest of the soldier-emperors, and under him the Byzantine Empire reached the height of its medieval power. In a reign of almost fifty years he crushed rebellions at home, extended the frontiers in every direction, and waged a long and merciless war that ended the Bulgarian Empire. The victory that sealed it would later give him the name by which history remembers him: the Bulgar-Slayer. Paul Stephenson, as Timothy May summarizes him, ties the name to the politics of the twelfth century, when the Komnenian emperors sought to associate themselves with his image.1
Early life: an emperor in the background
Basil was born in 957 or 958, the eldest son of Emperor Romanos II and Theophano, a grandson of Constantine VII and a great-grandson of Romanos I Lekapenos. He was crowned co-emperor with his younger brother Constantine in 960, but when their father died in 963 the boys were far too young to rule.2
For thirteen years real power lay with the soldier-emperors who ruled in their name: first their stepfather Nikephoros II Phokas, then John I Tzimiskes. The young Basil grew up as the junior partner on the coinage, watching generals from the great landed families of Asia Minor run the empire, an experience that shaped his whole reign.3
Rise: the fight for the throne
When Tzimiskes died in January 976, the eunuch Basil the chamberlain (parakoimomenos), the young emperor's great-uncle, took the reins. His authority, and Basil's, was challenged at once by two generals from powerful landed families who wanted the senior throne for themselves. Bardas Skleros rose first, in 976, and was defeated by Bardas Phokas; then in 987 Phokas himself proclaimed himself emperor and joined forces with Skleros.4
Basil came to the throne young and had to fight to keep it. He crushed Phokas with the help of a force of Varangian warriors sent by Vladimir of Kiev, whose people were brought into the Christian faith in return, a fateful moment for the history of Russia. Britannica records that Vladimir received the hand of Basil's sister Anna on condition that his state adopt Christianity, and Catherine Holmes puts the Rus force at about 6,000 men. Phokas's rebellion ended with his death at the battle of Abydos on 13 April 989; Skleros surrendered and died in 991. Some of the Rus stayed on, forming the famous Varangian Guard. Basil had already rid himself of his great-uncle, exiling him in 985.5
Campaigns: the Bulgarian war
The great struggle of Basil's reign was against the Bulgarian Empire of Tsar Samuel, who ruled from Macedonia and dominated the western Balkans. It began badly. In August 986 Basil marched on Sardica (Sofia) and had to retreat after an attack by Samuel, and the civil wars then kept him away for years. From the early 990s he returned, and Britannica describes how year by year he slowly penetrated into Samuel's territory, campaigning in winter as well as summer.6
In 1014, at Kleidion, Basil trapped and destroyed the main Bulgarian army. Holmes notes that the blockade of the pass was broken by an attack from the rear led by Basil's general Nikephoros Xiphias. According to the chroniclers he blinded thousands of prisoners, a figure the chronicler John Skylitzes, writing decades later, put at fifteen thousand, though the number may be exaggerated; when the broken men were sent home, Tsar Samuel is said to have died of the shock. A century before, Bulgaria had been the stronger power, when Tsar Simeon I crushed a Byzantine army at Anchialus in 917.7
Kleidion did not end the war at once. Basil wintered in the Balkans and needed about four more years to force a surrender. When Tsar Ivan Vladislav was killed near Dyrrachium in 1018, the Bulgarian royal family and commanders gave in, and Basil celebrated with a progress through Macedonia, a thanksgiving in the Parthenon at Athens and a triumph in Constantinople. By 1018 Bulgaria was fully absorbed into the empire, its lands made Byzantine provinces.8
The empire at its height
Basil was just as active in the east. In 995 he marched from the Balkans across Asia Minor to relieve Antioch and northern Syria, one of the forced marches Britannica mentions. By war and diplomacy he gained land from Georgia and Armenia: an inconclusive incursion into Georgia in 1021 was followed by a decisive victory in 1022, and the Armenian state of Vaspurakan was absorbed. In southern Italy order was restored, and at his death an advance force had already landed at Messina to prepare the reconquest of Sicily. When he died, for all his costly wars, he left a full treasury.9
His diplomacy ranged as widely as his armies. During the Bulgarian war he enlisted Venice to guard the Dalmatian coast and the Adriatic against Bulgarian attack. In the west, Britannica records, he tried to place a Greek pope in Rome and to marry his favorite niece Zoe to the German emperor Otto III, himself half Byzantine by birth; both schemes failed, but Byzantine authority in southern Italy was steadily strengthened against the Ottonian emperors and the Lombard rebels, as Holmes describes.10
Character and command style
Near-contemporary writers and manuscript painters show a short, well-built man with bright light-blue eyes, a round face and bushy whiskers, which, Britannica notes, he twirled in his fingers when angry or giving audience. He dressed plainly, chose only dark purple even in imperial robes, spoke abruptly and scorned rhetoric. The historian Michael Psellos, as Holmes summarizes him, portrayed an austere ruler, contemptuous of luxury, who watched over government and frontiers alike.11
His way of war was patience and attrition rather than the single decisive battle: annual campaigns, winter operations, fortress by fortress, with trusted generals such as Xiphias to strike the key blows. At home the same ruthlessness served his authority. His law of 996 struck at the "powerful," ordering land they had acquired from small farmers since 927 to be returned without compensation, and great estates were confiscated. In spite of his costly wars he left a full treasury, part of it stored in underground chambers built for the purpose.12
Death and legacy
Basil died on 15 December 1025. He had prepared a tomb among the emperors in the Church of the Holy Apostles, but chose instead to be buried at the monastery of St. John the Evangelist at the Hebdomon, outside the walls, beside the parade grounds of the army; as Holmes puts it, in death as in life he could keep watch over his troops.13
Basil never married and left no heir, and lived like a soldier to the end, austere and tireless. His epithet, the Bulgar-Slayer, grew in fame in the centuries after his death; the Komnenian emperors of the twelfth century sought to associate themselves with his image, and Michael Choniates ranked him with Heraclius. What is beyond doubt is that he left Byzantium stronger than it had been for four hundred years. With no able successor to take his place, Britannica observes, his work was rapidly undone.14
Meet the other great commanders of the Byzantine Empire, among them an earlier soldier-emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas, see Kleidion beside the empire's other greatest battles, or measure them all against the world's best in the greatest military commanders. Then try the Byzantine battles quiz.
