About this ebook
They were the first to learn what Basil II really was.
While Byzantine emperors spent their reigns in perfumed palace chambers, Basil strapped on iron armor and marched. For decades, he ate with his soldiers, slept on campaign, and ground down every rebel, every invader, and every ambitious general who mistook his youth for weakness.
One by one, they all broke.
But nothing in his fifty-year reign announced who he was more clearly than the morning after the Battle of Kleidion in 1014. With fifteen thousand Bulgarian prisoners kneeling in the dirt before him, Basil issued an order that would echo across centuries.
Blind them. Every one. Leave one eye for every hundredth man — just enough to lead the others home.
When the column of broken soldiers stumbled back to their king, the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel looked at what his war had produced and died of shock on the spot.
Basil II ruled until 1025, leaving behind an empire at the absolute peak of its power and wealth.
No emperor before him had built more. None after him could hold it.
