Nikephoros II Phokas

   Emperor (q.v.) from 963-969. His greatest triumph as general (domestikos [q.v.] ton scholon) for Romanos II (q.v.) was the conquest of Crete (q.v.) in 961. As emperor, his victories against the Arabs (q.v.) continued with the capture of Cyprus, Tarsos, and Mopsuestia in 965. His generals Peter Phokas and Michael Bourtzes (qq.v) captured Antioch (qq.v.) in 969. He called upon Svjatoslav (q.v.) to defeat the Bulgars (q.v.) in 968, the same year of the unsuccessful embassy of Liutprand of Cremona on behalf of Otto I (qq.v.). He increased the minimum size of land held by soldiers (the stratiotika ktemata [q.v.]) in order to support his new armored troops, the kataphraktoi (q.v.). He forbade new bequests of land to the church (something the patriarch Polyeuktos [q.v.] opposed), but he supported the work of Athanasios of Athos on Mount Athos (qq.v.), where the Great Lavra (q.v.) was founded in 963. He was murdered in 969 in a plot that included his wife Theophano and his general John Tzimiskes (qq.v.).