Bardas Skleros

Nikephoros' brother Leo had been named kouropalates in 963, his and assumed the post of logothetes tou dromou, remaining his brother's chief minister until the overthrow and murder of Nikephoros by Tzimiskes in 969.

In 970, Leo unsuccessfully tries to rebel against Tzimiskes, and is exiled to Lesbos.

As Emperor John I, Tzimiskes marries Theodora, sister of Constantine VIII Porphyrogenitus, the legitimate claimant to the throne, to offset challenges to his rule at home.

Coupling diplomatic skill with military strength, Tzimiskes strengthens the imperial position.

Boris II is unable to stem the Kievan advance, and finds himself forced to accept Sviatoslav of Kiev as his ally and puppet-master, turning against the Greeks.

Bardas Skleros leads twelve thousand skilled soldiers in overcoming thirty thousand Russian invaders at Arcadiopolis near Adrianople, Bardas and his brother first triumphing in single combat.

Only a few Russians escape the battle, in which, according to a Greek historian, only twenty-five imperial soldiers had been killed.

Emperor John I Tzimiskes advances northwards.

Failing to secure the defense of the Balkan passes, …

…Sviatoslav allows the imperial forces to penetrate into Moesia and lay siege to the Bulgarian capital Preslav.

Although Bulgarians and Ruses join in defending the city, the Greeks manage to set afire the wooden structures and roofs by missiles, and take the fortress.

Boris II now becomes a captive of John I Tzimiskes, who continues to pursue the Kievan Army, besieging Sviatoslav in Drăstăr (Silistra), while claiming to act as Boris' ally and protector, and treating the Bulgarian monarch with due respect.

The general Bardas Phokas, nephew of the murdered Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, is a scion of the Phokas family, the empire’s most prominent aristocratic clan in the tenth century.

His father Leo Phokas the Younger had been a curopalates and brother to Nikephoros.

Even as a young man, Bardas had gained a reputation for his great expertise in the science of war, but if his military career had been quick to peak, it is even quicker to collapse.

He is proclaimed Emperor by troops stationed at Caesarea, but their rebellion is extinguished by another skilled commander, Bardas Skleros.

Phokas and his relatives are captured and exiled to the island of Chios, where he will spend the following seven years.

Otto, in his attempt to consolidate his authority over the papacy, has unsuccessfully campaigned in southern Italy on several occasions from 966 to 972.

His son by Adelaide of Italy, Otto the Red, at first only co-reigning with his father, had been chosen German king at Worms in 961 and crowned at Aachen Cathedral on May 26, 961, and on December 25, 967 had been crowned joint emperor at Rome by Pope John XIII.

Earlier in 967, Otto had given the duchy of Spoleto to Pandulf Ironhead, prince of Benevento and Capua, a powerful ally in the Mezzogiorno.

In the next year, Otto had left the siege of Bari in the charge of Pandulf, but the allied duke had been captured in the Battle of Bovino by imperial Greek troops.

The emperor John I Tzimiskes recognizes Otto's imperial title in 972 and agrees to a marriage between Otto's son and heir and his twelve-year-old niece Theophanu, thus establishing dynastic ties between Constantinople and the West.

Pandulf is released from captivity, and the marriage ceremony takes place on April 14, performed by Pope John XIII.

(Though Otto had requested an imperial princess, it is unlikely that Theophanu was the daughter of any emperor: the current theory is that her father was Konstantinos Skleros, brother of the pretender Bardas Skleros, and her mother was Sophia Phokaina, niece of Emperor Nikephoros II, and sister of Maria Skleraina, Tzimiskes' first wife.

Accordingly she was of Armenian descent.

Theophanu is credited with introducing the fork to Western Europe; chroniclers mention the astonishment she caused when she "used a golden double prong to bring food to her mouth" instead of using her hands as was the norm.)

On the death of Pope John XIII in September 972, the majority of the electors who adhered to the imperial faction had chosen Benedict to be his successor.

He is not consecrated until January 973, due to the need to gain the approval of the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I.

Installed as pope under the protection of Otto I, Benedict is seen as a puppet of the emperor by the local Roman aristocracy, who resent the emperor’s dominance in Roman civil and ecclesiastical affairs.

Record of Benedict’s reign as pope is scant.

There is a letter dated to Benedict’s reign from Piligrim, Bishop of Passau, asking for Benedict to confer on him the Pallium, and make him a Bishop so that he could continue his mission to convert the Hungarian people to Christianity.

However, the response from Benedict is considered to be a forgery.

He is also known to have confirmed privileges assumed by certain monasteries and churches.

At the request of King Lothair of France and his wife, Benedict placed the monastery of Blandin under papal protection.

There is also a papal bull from Benedict in which Frederick, Archbishop of Salzburg and his successors are named Papal vicars in the former Roman provinces of Upper and Lower Pannonia and Noricum; however, the authenticity of this bull is disputed.

Otto I had died soon after Benedict's election in 973, and with the accession of Otto II, troubles with the nobility emerged in Germany.

With the new emperor so distracted, a faction of the Roman nobility opposed to the interference of the German emperors in Roman affairs, took advantage of the opportunity to move against Benedict VI.

Led by Crescentius the Elder and the Cardinal-Deacon Franco Ferrucci (who had been the preferred candidate of the anti-German faction), Benedict is taken in June 974, and imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo, at this time a stronghold of the Crescentii.

Ferrucci is then proclaimed as the new pope, taking the name Boniface VII.

Hearing of the overthrow of Benedict VI, Otto II sends an imperial representative, Count Sicco, to demand his release.

Unwilling to step down, Boniface orders a priest named Stephen to murder Benedict while he is in prison, strangling him to death.

Benedict is succeeded, after the overthrow of the Antipope Boniface VII, by Pope Benedict VII.

A revolt against Constantinople, led by the four sons of Macedonian governor Nicholas, had spread to become a war of liberation.

Samuel is the fourth and youngest son of count (comita) Nikola, a Bulgarian noble, who might have been the Count of Sredets (Sofia), although other sources suggest that he was a regional count somewhere in the region of today Macedonia.

His mother was Ripsimia of Armenia.

The actual name of the dynasty is not known.

“Cometopuli” is the nickname which is used by Byzantine historians to address rulers from the dynasty as its founder.

Samuel and the Cometopuli had risen to power out of the disorder that had occurred in the Bulgarian Empire from 966 to 971.

After Emperor John I Tzimiskes dies on January 11, 976, the Cometopuli launch an assault along the whole border with the Empire.

Within a few weeks, however, David is killed by Vlach vagrants and Moses is fatally injured by a stone during the siege of Serres.

The brothers' actions to the south detain many imperial troops and ease Samuel's liberation of northeastern Bulgaria; the imperial commander is defeated and retreated to Crimea.

Any Bulgarian nobles and officials who had not opposed Constantinople’s conquest of the region are executed, and the war continues north of the Danube until the enemy is scattered and Bulgarian rule is restored.

After suffering these defeats in the Balkans, the Empire descends into civil war.

The commander of the Asian army, Bardas Skleros, rebels in Asia Minor and sends troops under his son Romanus in Thrace to besiege Constantinople.

The new Emperor Basil II does not have enough manpower to fight both the Bulgarians and the rebels and resorts to treason, conspiracy and complicated diplomatic plots.

Basil II makes many promises to the Bulgarians and Scleros to divert them from allying against him.

Aaron, the eldest living Cometopulus, is tempted by an alliance with Constantinople and the opportunity to seize power in Bulgaria for himself.

He holds land in Thrace, a region potentially subject to the imperial threat.

Basil reaches an agreement with Aaron, who asks to marry Basil's sister to seal it.

Basil instead sends the wife of one of his officials with the bishop of Sebaste.

However, the deceit is uncovered and the bishop is killed.

Nonetheless, negotiations proceed and conclude in a peace agreement.

Samuel learns of the conspiracy and the clash between the two brothers is inevitable.

The quarrel breaks out in the vicinity of Dupnitsa on June 14, 976, and ends with the annihilation of Aaron's family.

Only his son, Ivan Vladislav, survives because Samuel's son Gavril Radomir pleads on his behalf.

From this moment on, practically all power and authority in the state is held by Samuel and the danger of an internal conflict has been all but eliminated.

However, another theory suggests that Aaron participated in the battle of the Gates of Trajan which will take place ten years later.

According to that theory, Aaron was killed on June 14, 987 or 988.

John I Tzimisces had taken most of Palestine from the Fatimid caliphate, but before he is able to recapture Jerusalem for the Empire, he dies, probably of typhoid, on January 10, 976.

At the news of the emperor's death, Constantinople’s forces cease hostilities and withdraw, bringing to an abrupt close the war with the Fatimids.

The eunuch Basil the Chamberlain has taken control of the throne for John’s two grandnephews and co-emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII.

An immediate challenge to the chamberlain’s authority and that of eighteen-year-old Basil II has come from two generals who covet the position of senior emperor.

Both related to emperors, they belong to powerful landed families and command outside support from Georgia and from the ‘Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, who most of the Islamic world still acknowledge as the supreme spiritual authority, despite temporal power having long since devolved to independent hereditary Muslim rulers from India to Spain.

The powerful imperial general Bardas Skleros, a brother-in-law of the late Emperor, had been demoted from eastern commander to governor of Mesopotamia.

His troops and the Arabs of Melitene proclaim him emperor in summer 976 and seize considerable imperial territory in Asia Minor and Syria.