[18] Basil was the eldest son of Romanos and his Laconian Greek second wife Theophano,[19] who was the daughter of a poor tavern-keeper named Krateros[20][21] and may have originated from the city of Sparta.

[31] Therefore, although the Byzantine Senate confirmed them as emperors with their mother as the nominal regent, de facto power passed for the time into the hands of the parakoimomenos Joseph Bringas.

Towards the end of his reign, John had belatedly planned to curb the power of the great landowners; his death, which occurred soon after he spoke out against them, led to rumors that he had been poisoned by Lekapenos, who had illegally acquired vast estates and feared an investigation and punishment.

[31] Skleros and Phokas, both of whom were experienced generals, wanted to assume the Imperial position that Nikephoros II and John I had held, and thus return Basil to the role of impotent cypher.

Basil, showing a penchant for ruthlessness, took to the field himself and suppressed the rebellions of both Skleros (979) and Phokas (989)[47] with the help of 12,000 Georgians of Tornikios and David III Kuropalates of Tao.

"[55] To defeat these dangerous revolts, Basil formed an alliance with Prince Vladimir I of Kiev,[56] who in 988 had captured Chersonesos, the Empire's main base in the Crimean Peninsula.

[56] This marriage had important long-term implications, marking the beginning of the process by which the Grand Duchy of Moscow many centuries later would proclaim itself "The Third Rome", and claim the political and cultural heritage of the Byzantine Empire.

Bourtzes' defeat forced Basil to intervene personally in the East; with his army, he rode through Asia Minor to Aleppo in sixteen days, arriving in April 995.

In 998, the Byzantines under Damian Dalassenos, the successor of Bourtzes, launched an attack on Apamea but the Fatimid general Jaysh ibn al-Samsama defeated them in battle on 19 July 998.

[73][74] Taking losses and worried about the loyalty of some of his governors, Basil lifted the siege and returned for Thrace but he fell into an ambush and suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of the Gates of Trajan.

Having crushed the Bulgarians, Basil exacted his vengeance cruelly—he was said to have captured 15,000 prisoners and fully blinded 99 of every 100 men, leaving one one-eyed man in each cohort to lead the rest back to their ruler.

In 1016, Byzantine armies in conjunction with Mstislav of Chernigov attacked the Crimea,[35] much of which had fallen under the control of the Khazar successor kingdom of George Tzoul based at Kerch.

In the urgency of the situation, Georgian prince David III of Tao aided Basil; after a decisive loyalist victory at the Battle of Pankaleia, he was rewarded by lifetime rule of key imperial territories in eastern Asia Minor.

[35] In late 1021, Basil, at the head of a large Byzantine army reinforced by the Varangian Guard, attacked the Georgians and their Armenian allies, recovering Phasiane and continuing beyond the frontiers of Tao into inner Georgia.

A bloody battle was fought near the village Shirimni at Lake Palakazio on 11 September; the emperor won a costly victory, forcing George I to retreat northwards into his kingdom.

Menaced both by land and sea, George agreed to a treaty that handed over Tao, Phasiane, Kola, Artaan and Javakheti, and left his infant son Bagrat as Basil's hostage.

[35][106] Seeking to protect the lower and middle classes, Basil made ruthless war upon the system of immense estates in Asia Minor[34]—which his predecessor Romanos I had endeavored to check[49]—by executing a legal decree in January 996 that limited rights to property ownership.

Basil did not innovate in terms of military organization: in the conquered territories he introduced both the small themes or strategiai, centred around a fortress town, that were such a common feature of the 10th-century reconquests of the East under Phokas and Tzimiskes,[117] as well as the extensive regional commands under a doux or katepano (Iberia in 1000,[118] Asprakania or Upper Media in 1019/22,[119] Paristrion in 1000/20,[120] Bulgaria in 1018,[121] and Sirmium in 1019[122]).

[123] At the same time, however, under Basil the practice began of relying on allied states—most notably Venice—for naval power, beginning the slow decline of the Byzantine navy during the 11th century.

Basil was preparing a military expedition to recover the island of Sicily when he died on 15 December 1025,[note 9] having had the longest reign among any Byzantine or Roman emperor.

[132] At the time of his death, the Empire stretched from southern Italy to the Caucasus and from the Danube to the Levant, which was its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests four centuries earlier.

His final resting place carried the following inscription: From the day that the King of Heaven called upon me to become the Emperor, the great overlord of the world, no one saw my spear lie idle.

[115] In 1260, during the unsuccessful Nicean Byzantine siege of Constantinople, then held by the Latin Empire, a corpse was found, upright in a corner of the Church of St. John the Evangelist, with a shepherd's flute placed in its mouth.

An assessment of the reign in the eyes of the subsequent generations is given by Psellos:He crushed rebellions, subdued the feudal landowners, conquered the enemies of the Empire, notably in the Danubian provinces and the East.

[31][136] The restoration of the Danubian frontier helped establish a more stable and secure border for the empire in Europe, maintaining a stronger barrier against Hungarian and Pecheneg raiders.

The conquest of Bulgaria and the submission of the South Slavs created relative peace for the empire's Balkan lands, keeping larger cities—including Constantinople—safe from the previously frequent sieges and looting.

Basil's military experience that allowed him to eventually turn the war against Bulgaria in the Byzantine Empire's favor were gained through the revolts of Phokas and Skleros in Anatolia that challenged his throne and sometimes got close to deposing him.

[137] Basil's creation of the Varangian Guard provided him and his successors with an elite mercenary force capable of changing battle outcomes and boosting morale that became feared by the emperor's enemies.

[146] Basil II lacked heirs[147] due to the "dearth of cousins found within the Macedonian dynasty",[42][note 10] so he was succeeded by his brother Constantine and his family, who proved to be ineffective rulers.

Nevertheless, fifty years of prosperity and intellectual growth followed because the funds of state were full, the borders were safe from intruders, and the Empire remained the most powerful political entity of the age.