Constantinople had been forced to pay tribute…
916 CE
Constantinople had been forced to pay tribute to Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria after the Bulgarian victory in the war between 894 and 896.
In 912, when the Emperor Leo VI died, his brother Alexander had refused to pay tribute to the Bulgarians.
Simeon had seen an opportunity to wage a new war and fulfill his ambitions to conquer Constantinople.
Alexander had died in the same year and the new government under the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos had made desperate attempts to avoid the war, promising that the infant Emperor Constantine VII would marry one of Simeon's daughters.
At some point, the patriarch and Simeon had even met outside the walls of Constantinople, performing a coronation ceremony.
Thereafter, Simeon had begun using the title "Tsar of the Bulgarians", and the Greek title basileus in his seals.
After a plot in the imperial court in 914 however, the new regent Zoe, Constantine's mother, had rejected the marriage.
In answer the Bulgarians raided Eastern Thrace.
Adrianople had opened its gates to Simeon in September 914, and its population had recognized Simeon as their ruler, while the imperial army was occupied in the east.
In the next year, the Bulgarian armies had attacked the areas of Dyrrhachium and Thessalonica.
Both sides have carefully prepared for a decisive end of the conflict.
Empress Zoe want to swiftly make a peace settlement with the Arabs and to engage the whole army of the East in a war with Simeon and destroy him.
The Greeks try to find allies and send emissaries to the Magyars, Pechenegs and Serbs, but Simeon is familiar with the methods of imperial diplomacy and from the very beginning had taken successful actions to subvert a possible alliance between his enemies.
Thus, the imperial troops will be forced to fight alone.