eupon became emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the field clear of his
enemies, returned in 970, and in March of that year sacked and occupied
Philippopolis. The Emperor John Tzimisces, who was even abler both as
general and as diplomat than his predecessor, quietly pushed forward his
warlike preparations, and did not meet the Russians till the autumn, when
he completely defeated them at Arcadiopolis (the modern Lule-Burgas). The
Russians retired north of the Balkan range, but the Greeks followed them.
John Tzimisces besieged them in the capital 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 assassinati