Battle of Arcadiopolis (970)

Kievan Rus' Krum's campaigns Simeon I's campaigns Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria Uprising of Peter Delyan Second Bulgarian Empire The Battle of Arcadiopolis was fought in 970 between a Byzantine army under Bardas Skleros and a Rus' army, the latter also including allied Bulgarian, Pecheneg, and Hungarian (Magyar) contingents.

The battle was important as it bought time for the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes to settle his internal problems and assemble a large expedition, which eventually defeated Sviatoslav the next year.

In 965 or 966, a Bulgarian embassy visited the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963–969) at Constantinople to receive the annual tribute that had been agreed by the two powers as the price of peace in 927.

Phokas, flush and self-confident from a series of victories against the Arabs in the East that had led to the recovery of Crete, Cyprus, and Cilicia, refused to comply, and even had the envoys beaten up.

Sviatoslav now turned his sights on Byzantium, and to John's entreaties for peace he allegedly answered that the Empire should abandon its European territories to him and withdraw to Asia Minor.

[9][14] Tzimiskes himself was preoccupied with consolidating his position and with countering the unrest of the powerful Phokas clan and its adherents, and delegated the war in the Balkans to his brother-in-law, the Domestic of the Schools Bardas Skleros, and to the eunuch stratopedarches Peter.

It is clear, however, that the Byzantines were considerably outnumbered, and that the Rus' force at Arcadiopolis included significant numbers of Bulgarians, as well as allied contingents of Pechenegs and "Turks" (i.e.

According to Skylitzes, the Rus' quickly became convinced that the imperial army was too afraid to face them; consequently they roamed about the countryside plundering, neglected their camp defences, and spent their nights in heedless revelry.

The Byzantines executed a gradual orderly retreat, turning at intervals to charge back at the pursuing Pechenegs, who had thus become separated from the main body of the Rus' army.

[4] When the two opposing forces reached the place of the ambush, Bardas ordered the trumpets blown and the two concealed Byzantine divisions attacked the Pechenegs from the flanks and the rear.

One of their leaders tried to rally his men, but he was attacked by Bardas Skleros himself, who killed him with a single sword-blow that reportedly cut him in two from his head down to the waist, through the Pecheneg's helmet and cuirass.