Preslav, which he stormed, massacring many of the garrison, in April 972.  Svyatoslav and his remaining troops escaped to Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the Danube, where again, however, they were besieged and defeated by the indefatigable emperor.  At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians being allowed to go free on condition of the complete evacuation of Bulgaria and a gift of corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at the hands of the Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev.  The triumph of the Greeks was complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much left of the earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two mighty iron vessels on the top of it.  Eastern Bulgaria (i.e.  Moesia and Thrace) ceased to exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John Tzimisces made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, followed by the two sons of Peter of Bulgaria on foot; the elder was deprived of his regal attributes and created magistros, the younger was made a eunuch.

[Footnote 1:  John the Little.]

7

The Rise and Fall of ‘Western Bulgaria’ and the Greek Supremacy, 963-1186

Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither that the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the victory of the Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in Macedonia, where the apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital.  Western Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania, southern and eastern Serbia, and the westernmost parts of modern Bulgaria.  It was from this district that numerous anti-Hellenic revolts were directed after the death of the Emperor John Tzimisces in 976.  These culminated during the reign of Samuel (977-1014), one of the sons of Shishman.  He was as capable and energetic, as unscrupulous and inhuman, as the situation he was called upon to fill demanded.  He began by assassinating all his relations and nobles who resented his desire to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was recognized as tsar by the Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to fight the Greeks, the only possible occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler.  The emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was brave and patriotic but young and inexperienced.  In his early campaigns Samuel carried all before him; he reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985, Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II near Sofia the same year.  Later he conquered Albania and the southern parts of Serbia and what is now Montenegro and Hercegovina.  In 996 he threatened Salonika, but first of all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese; here he was followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and completely overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.