Summary
The century from the definitive capture of Crete (960)
to the defeat by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert (1071) illustrates
the glorious apogee and beginning of decline of the Byzantine state.
Up to the 920s, Byzantium was served by excellent generals and
warrior emperors. The First was Nicephorus Phocas, who directed
the conquest of Crete and capture of Candia, its capital. In the
same years, Nicephorus' brother, Leo Phocas, was active in the East.
Sayf al-Dawla, the Abbasid-Buyid Amir of Mosul, had captured Aleppo
in Syria in 945, and had expanded to Damascus, Emesa, and Antioch.
In 960, he sent a major expedition into Byzantine lands, at the
same time as most Byzantine forces were in Crete. Leo allowed
the Amir's forces to advance and take prisoners and plunder in
Byzantine lands, while the Byzantines set up their forces at the
key passes through the Taurus mountains that Sayf would need to
return through. In November 961, Leo and Sayf's forces met, the
latter being pulled into a well- planned Greek ambush. Sayf's forces
were routed, and the Byzantine eastern frontier had been restored.
In early 962, Leo led an offensive that regained fifty-five walled
towns in southeastern Anatolia. In the spring, his forces went
south into Syria, leaving nothing unburned or unplundered. Aleppo
was eventually sacked and plundered, but left un-occupied, its
Arab garrison deemed too small to be of danger. At this point,
the Emperor Romanus II died, and in a protracted contest among
various imperial claimants, Nicephorus Phocas emerged as Emperor
by 963. He raised Leo to Imperial Court Marshal, and another prominent
general, John Tzimisces, became commander-in-chief of Anatolian
forces.
Nicephorus was occupied on three fronts: 1) the Eastern,
Islamic; 2) the Northern, Bulgar-Russian; and 3) the internal front,
comprising the Church, the Anatolian landed aristocracy, and the
smallholding peasant-soldier class. He had the best success against
the Turco-Arab Muslims. In 965, Byzantines recovered Tarsus, which Muslims
had been using as a base for Cilician incursions. In the same
year, he set his sights on Cyprus. For nearly 300 years, Caliphate
and Byzantium had jointly occupied it. In 965, Nicephorus' armies
occupied it totally, forming it into a Theme. Two years later Sayf
al- Dawla died, and in 969 the holy city of Antioch returned to Byzantine
possession after 332 years.
The northern front gave mixed results. In 965, Bulgar
ambassadors arrived requesting the tribute that had been delivered
to them ever since the late 920s when the Bulgar Czar at that time
had married into the Byzantine family and furthered Christianization,
in the process making his state an effective buffer against Magyars
and Russians. Nicephorus refused the tribute, abused the ambassadors, and
then advanced to the Bulgarian frontier, capturing several border
towns. Not wanting to deplete troop numbers in the east, however,
he elected not to invade Bulgaria himself. Instead, he made
an agreement with the Viking-Russian Prince of Kiev Sviatoslav.
In return for a cash gift, Sviatslov would subdue the Bulgars.
Sviatoslav did this quite effectively, crumpling the Bulgar state
and replacing it on the Byzantine border. By 969, when Bulgar
Czar Peter died, the Russians were amassing forces right up against
the Thracian border.
Nicephorus eventually lost his throne, due mostly to internal problems.
A member of the Anatolian landholding aristocracy and a general,
Nicephorus Phocas patronized these two groups at the expense of
all other segments in the Empire, including the Church and the
rural-urban masses. Regarding the former, though Nicephorus was
rigorously puritanical, he was incensed by the large tracts of
Anatolian land monasteries and churches controlled in such a way
as to put them beyond state, Theme, and landholder access. He thus
proscribed additional transfers of land to the Church. Further, in
a particularly Byzantine foreshadowing of the Investiture
Controversy, the Emperor decreed that new bishops
would have to receive his personal approval for their appointments
to be valid.
As regards the masses, though the backbone of the Themes
was the mass of smallholding peasant soldiers, Nicephorus actually facilitated
the large Anatolian landholders' expansion of their holdings in
his effort to help the state treasury. When a tract came up for sale,
first preference was given to the owners of the adjacent tract, after
which the highest bidder was allowed access. The highest bidders,
of course, were the already large landed gentry. Nicephorus also
implemented harsh taxes to finance the military. The army in turn,
especially in Constantinople, increasingly antagonized the urban
populace through their uncouth behavior. Ultimately, though, it
was not a general urban revolt, but a plot that ended Nicephorus'
rule. Nicephorus' beautiful, conniving wife Theophano convinced
him to recall to the capital John Tzimisces, an old boon companion
recently fallen under a cloud. After his return, Theophano and
John conspired to usurp the throne. On December 10, 969, John
himself slipped into the palace and murdered the Emperor, assuming
the purple the next day and ridding himself of Theophano to placate
public and clerical opinion. Like his predecessor, John Tzimisces
major concern were his neighbors to the north and east. In 970,
Sviatoslav of the Russians went on the offensive, coming south
of the Danube. Byzantine forces did not engage the enemy until
they reached Arcadiopolis. After ambushing an advance guard of
Pechenegs, the Imperial forces went on to utterly defeat the Russians.
In the intervening two years, John dealt with internal revolts
and claims to the throne on the behalf of the slain Nicephorus'
relatives in the Phocas family as well as other prominent generals.
In 972, however, John himself led armies to the old Bulgarian
capital of Preslav and engaged the Russians in a fierce battle.
Ultimately, the Russians broke under the thrusts of John's own
elite forces, and so Preslav was later occupied by Greek forces around
Easter 972. Sviatoslav fled and was finally defeated at Dristra
on the Danube, in July 972. Bulgaria had been totally secured for
Byzantium. The Bulgar Czar abdicated, its patriarchate was reduced
to an archbishopric, and the region was absorbed as a province.
In 975, John turned his full attention to the East, where
the Fatimid state had expanded its influence past Egypt into Syria.
Tzimisces' campaigns here would represent the furthest extent
of Byzantine reconquest in the Empire's history. By the fall of
that year, most of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon were under Byzantine
control, for the first time since Heraclius in the 630s. By this
time, however, John was sick, and he died on January 10, 976.
