Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

A patronizing chamberlain determined to keep him a puppet, however, was the least of Basil II’s problems. The last twelve years had seen two remarkable warrior-emperors lead Byzantium to an unprecedented place in the sun, and many in the empire began to wonder if perhaps a battle-hardened warrior should be at the helm instead of a youth whose only qualification was an accident of birth. After all, who could argue that any of the generals who had usurped the Macedonian dynasty weren’t better emperors than the legitimate Romanus II? Hadn’t most of their greatest rulers—from Julius Caesar to John Tzimisces—justified their power not by heredity but by strength in arms?

The idea was a seductive one, and when the general Bardas Sclerus rose in revolt saying just that, he was met with a roar of approval. When he crushed a loyalist army sent to stop him, all of Asia Minor saw visions of imperial glory and hailed him as emperor. The rebels suffered a minor setback when the imperial navy destroyed their transports, but their mood was still buoyant when they reached the Bosporus and stared across the water at the Queen of Cities.

In the capital, the eunuch Basil Lecapenus was starting to panic. For the moment, the navy was keeping the rebels at bay, but he knew all too well how easily an army could slip across the narrow stretch of water. The only experienced general who stood a chance against the veteran Sclerus was Bardas Phocas—a man whose ability was second only to his well-known desire to seize the throne—but he was currently in exile for attempting to do just that. Putting the imperial army in Phocas’s grasping hands wasn’t much better than handing the empire to Sclerus, but Basil didn’t have any other choice. Recalling the exiled general, the chamberlain entrusted the empire to his care and sent him off to fight the rebel army.

For three years, the rival Bardases fought a series of inconclusive battles, with the rebel Sclerus generally proving the better commander but unable to conclusively defeat his wily opponent.^* The matter was finally decided when the frustrated rebel foolishly accepted an offer of single combat against the huge Bardas Phocas. After ending the war with a massive blow to his opponent’s head that sent Sclerus crashing heavily to the ground, Phocas scattered the rebels and returned to Constantinople in triumph. The wounded Sclerus recovered, but he was a spent force, and he fled to Baghdad to avoid the emperor’s wrath. After eight long years of exile, Bardas Phocas could now bask in the welcome role of savior of the empire, and for the moment the imperial gratitude was enough. Riding east to battle the Saracens, Phocas planned to cover himself in glory and bide his time until the moment was right to seize the throne.

By 985, Basil Lecapenus could congratulate himself on having brilliantly played off the empire’s enemies against one another, and at the same time on having kept the legitimate emperor as a puppet. It was therefore a complete surprise to him—and everyone else—when the formerly passive Basil II suddenly struck without warning. Accused of conspiring against the emperor, the bewildered chamberlain was dragged from his bed in the middle of the night and placed under house arrest as his lands were confiscated and his vast wealth absorbed by the treasury. After twenty-five years as a crowned puppet, the son of Romanus II had finally claimed his inheritance.

Eager to prove himself, Basil II found an excellent excuse for a military adventure in Bulgaria. Thanks largely to Byzantium’s distraction, Bulgaria had somehow managed to resurrect itself from its ruined state and expand at imperial expense. A remarkable man named Samuel, the youngest and most capable of the so-called Sons of the Count who had defied Tzimisces, had assumed the title of tsar—the Slavic version of Caesar—and declared a second Bulgarian empire. Conducting summer raids into northern Greece, the tsar managed to capture several key cities, damaging Byzantine prestige and inciting more of his countrymen to join him. Outraged by the temerity of this jumped-up peasant and determined to prove himself worthy of his glorious predecessors, Basil II gathered an army sixty thousand strong and headed for the magnificent Bulgarian city of Sofia.

The campaign was a disaster from the start. After several weeks of annoying the citizens of Sofia with an ineffectual siege, Basil II gave up and started the long march home. Traveling through a mountain pass called the Gates of Trajan without bothering to scout ahead, his army blundered into an ambush by the amused tsar, who had been watching for just such an opportunity. Leaving his insignia behind, the emperor managed to escape, but most of his army was cut to pieces. The twenty-eight-year-old Basil II had stumbled badly, and when he returned to Constantinople, frightened and humiliated, the damage to his prestige was immediately apparent.