Samuel of Bulgaria

   Ruled Bulgaria (q.v.) from 976-1014; first Bulgarian ruler to adopt the title tsar (q.v.). Samuel's invasions of Greece (q.v.) from 981-986, which reached as far as the Peloponnesos (qq.v.), culminated in a great victory over Basil II at the pass called Trajan's Gate (q.v.). However, from 991-1014 Basil II (q.v.) struck back in a series of expeditions that reclaimed Greece and took the war into Bulgaria. In 997 Basil's general Nikephoros Ouranos won a decisive victory over Samuel in central Greece at the Spercheios River. In 1004 he captured Skopje, and Dyrrachion (qq.v.) fell in 1005. In 1014 Basil surrounded Samuel's army in the mountain passes of Kleidion and captured 14,000 prisoners, whom he blinded, sending them back to Samuel in groups of a hundred, each group led by a single soldier with one eye. Samuel is said to have died, presumably from a stroke, when he saw his blinded troops.