[11][12] Similar comments were made even in Constantinople, where John Kyriotes penned a poem offering a punning comparison between the Bulgarian Emperor and Halley's comet, which appeared in 989.

He moved the capital from Skopje to Ohrid,[8][15] which had been the cultural and military centre of southwestern Bulgaria since Boris I's rule,[16] and made the city the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate.

However, after Maria's death in 963, the truce had been shaken and it was at this time or later that Peter I sent his sons Boris and Roman to Constantinople as honorary hostages, to honor the new terms of the peace treaty.

In 973, the Cometopuli (described by Thietmar of Merseburg simply as the Bulgarians)[28] sent envoys to the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in Quedlinburg in an attempt to secure the protection of their lands.

The commander of the Asian army, Bardas Scleros, rebelled in Asia Minor and sent troops under his son Romanus in Thrace to besiege Constantinople.

[44][45] After the Byzantine plan to use Aaron to cause instability in Bulgaria failed, they tried to encourage the rightful heirs to the throne,[46] Boris II and Roman, to oppose Samuel.

[52] As the main effort of Basil II was concentrated against the rebel Skleros, Samuel's armies attacked the European possessions of the Byzantine Empire.

In the south, the Bulgarians marched throughout Epirus and in the west they seized the area of modern Durrës (medieval Dyrrhachium or Drach) on the Adriatic Sea.

[81] The Byzantines conquered some areas; in 995, however, the Arabs invaded Asia Minor and Basil II was forced to move many of his troops to combat this new threat.

Constantinople would not recognize the new emperor, as for the Byzantines Boris II's abdication symbolized the official end of Bulgaria and Samuel was considered a mere rebel.

Instead Samuel sought recognition from the Pope, which would be a serious blow to the position of the Byzantines in the Balkans and would weaken the influence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, thereby benefiting both the See of Rome and Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian army then attacked Croatia in support of the rebel princes Krešimir III and Gojslav and advanced northwest as far as Split, Trogir and Zadar, then northeast through Bosnia and Raška and returned to Bulgaria.

[91] Meanwhile, Princess Miroslava fell in love with the Byzantine noble captive Ashot, son of Gregorios Taronites, the dead governor of Thessaloniki, and threatened to commit suicide if she was not allowed to marry him.

[92] Samuel also sealed an alliance with the Magyars when his eldest son and heir, Gavril Radomir, married the daughter of the Hungarian Grand Prince Géza.

[97] In 1001, Basil II sent a large army under the patrician Theodorokanos and Nikephoros Xiphias to the north of the Balkan Mountains to seize the main Bulgarian fortresses in the area.

[104][105] Although Gavril Radomir's marriage to the daughter of the Hungarian ruler had established friendly relations between the two strongest states of the Danube area, the relationship deteriorated after Géza's death.

[110] Basil II decided to return to Constantinople afterwards, but, fearing an encounter with the Bulgarian army on the main road to his capital, he used an alternate route.

After finding a ford and crossing the river, Basil II attacked and defeated Samuel's unsuspecting army, using the same tactics employed at Spercheios.

Since the Byzantines usually used the valley of the Strumitsa River for their invasions into Bulgaria, Samuel built a thick wooden wall in the gorges around the village of Klyuch (also Kleidion, "key") to bar the enemy's way.

[120] After several days of continuous attempts to break through the wall, one Byzantine commander, the governor of Plovdiv Nicephorus Xiphias, found a by-pass and, on 29 July, attacked the Bulgarians from the rear.

After the Battle of Kleidion, on the order of Basil II the captured Bulgarian soldiers were blinded; one of every 100 men was left one-eyed so as to lead the rest home.

Although Samuel's son and successor, Gavril Radomir, was a talented military leader, he was murdered by his cousin Ivan Vladislav, who, ironically, owed his life to him.

[129] Another woman, Theodora Kosara, who was wedded to Jovan Vladimir of Duklja and was considered by earlier scholarship as Samuel's daughter, is now regarded to have been simply a relative, perhaps a niece of Agatha.

After the fall of Bulgaria, Samuel's descendants assumed important positions in the Byzantine court after they were resettled and given lands in Asia Minor and Armenia.

[135] Samuel's grave was found in 1965 by Greek professor Nikolaos Moutsopoulos in the Church of St Achillios on the eponymous island in Lake Prespa.

[184][185] Nevertheless, on a meeting in Sofia in June 2017, Prime Ministers Boyko Borisov and Zoran Zaev laid flowers at the monument of Tsar Samuil together, articulating optimism that the two countries can finally resolve their open issues by signing a long-delayed agreement on good-neighborly relations.

In February 2019, at a meeting of the committee, involving Bulgarian and Macedonian scientists, the two sides agreed to propose to their governments that Tsar Samuel may be celebrated jointly.

[192] In August 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia published official recommendations of the Joint Historical Commission operating between the two countries.

There, the governments in Sofia and Skopje are offered a joint commemoration of Samuel, who, according to the commission, was the ruler of a large medieval state, which the majority of modern historical scholarship considers to be the Bulgarian empire itself, centered in the territory of today's North Macedonia.

[194] Despite these facts multiple examples of animosity between Bulgaria and North Macedonia have been registered, due to disputes over Samuil's ethnic affiliation and this issue is still highly sensitive.