Was Basil II of Byzantium Evil?

I was reading a book recently (the Evil 100) which ranked Basil II of Byzantium from 976 to 1025 as the 8th most evil person in history because of what he did to Bulgar prisoners after the Battle of Kleidion where he blinded 99 out of every 100 men and left the 100th with one eye to lead them back to their Tsar who apparently had a heart attack and died upon seeing such a grotesque sight.  This and other incidents earned him the name bulgaroktonos meaning bulgar-slayer.

I don't think that's evil given the standards of the time, and one of my Greek friends who is the proudest Greek on Earth told me that at least from other Greek people he's met, Basil is admired in Greece for bringing Byzantium to its greatest extent since the fall of the Near East to the Arabs. 

What do you all think?

Yeah i dont think Basil is evil.His achievements are far greater than that.And numbers are probably much lesser than mentioned.Probably Basil didnt even deserved to be among the first 100 evil guyes.

Its seems that Basil has the "luck" to be one of the great leaders who were misjudged and shadowed by some minor things they did.No matter of that he still is of my favorite emperors.

 As must always be pointed out when discussing Basil II is the tragedy of him leaving no suitable heir having no children of his own, thus leaving all of achievements in the hands of lesser men.

Originally posted by Thracian Now wait wait..... please From what I am reading it seems the fact that the thousands of Bugarian army prisoners of war - 1 for every 100 had only one eye be torn away where the Rest were fully blined and then sent back to show how he -- well powerful he is to the Bulgarian tsar of the time. Once tsar Samuil saw them he was struck by a heart attack.(considering the sight, it is not that surprising) Now mind you that this is a sick act considering the army consisted of around 10 thousand I believe.

Most accept the figure as higher, either 14,000 to 15,000 men. The act itself was brutal, that is true. I think one of the reasons it was actually recorded is not so much because it was brutual by the standards of the time, but because it was unusual and rather interesting. More common in medieval days would be to ransom the enemy for a huge sum (not practical given the penury of the Bulgars) or to simply kill them outright. Killing them outright is as bad as blinding them, had Basil just been conventional and slaghtered them at the end of the battle he would not have been made so infamous. The course of action Basil pursued was not especially cruel by the standards of the time, only unusual enough to make it especially famous. The cruelty was not wanton or ineffectual either, it had the desired result of dealing the Bulgars a shattering psychological blow.

Nothing to add to Heraclius' and Constantine's wonderfully eloquent defense of the great man. I'm sure after that any court in the world would acquit Basil from any accusations.

But some other question cropped up in my mind. I naturally don't know the book, Genghis was quoting, and what factors it applied to compile the rankings.
We have probably discussed that a few times along similar lines, as in the �Genghis and Hitler� thread, but the question must arise, if one can actually judge various historical figures with the same criteria, or does one have indeed to apply very different ones.
Can somebody like Basil II, from the 10th and 11th century, and his deeds be compared with a historical figure from the 20th century, who might have committed similar atrocities as the East-roman Emperor?
Can the same criteria for an ethical judgment be used for very different ages and their very different moral values?
Or is there indeed something like a cut-off point in the history, from where the same excuses can not be brought forward anymore. Made for example, the �enlightenment project� all the difference? Could before the �enlightenment� the mass slaughter of entire civilian populations by the various Early Medieval conquerors be comprehended or excused with the blessed ignorance of enduring moral values or human rights at the time, but can similar undertakings in the 20th centuries not be apologized anymore and not be explained other than by a sheer barbarism that defies any progress made by human civilization ?
Or in other words, what finer legal points had Heraclius and Constantine to come up with to get him off, had Basil lived through the 19th ,20th century Balkan wars. And had he risen in the rankings if he had been born later?


Edited by Komnenos

Originally posted by Komnenos Nothing to add to Heraclius' and Constantine's wonderfully eloquent defense of the great man. I'm sure after that any court in the world would acquit Basil from any accusations. But some other question cropped up in my mind. I naturally don't know the book, Genghis was quoting, and what factors it applied to compile the rankings. We have probably discussed that a few times along similar lines, as in the �Genghis and Hitler� thread, but the question must arise, if one can actually judge various historical figures with the same criteria, or does one have indeed to apply very different ones. Can somebody like Basil II, from the 10th and 11th century, and his deeds be compared with a historical figure from the 20th century, who might have committed similar atrocities as the East-roman Emperor?

Well work is a bore, so first of all my thanks to Komnenos for giving me something stimulating. To answer this segment of the question, I believe that humanity is a work in progress whose ethics cannot be judged from the "modern" standard alone. Nor can it be judged from "our" cultural standard alone. In assessing the cruelty of our long time basileios, we must recognise that he lived in an age of Western history probably more violent than any other. It was a cultural and political norm of the times that a conqueror could dispose of his enemies in whatever manner seemed fitting to him, such were the rules of the game in a world which preceeded the UN, Geneva or the stability which came with the statist reconstruction after the Westphalian agreement. In such a world, mass killing (especially of combatants) was an effective means by which to discourage enemy attacks. Failure to make a proper example of one's enemies almost invited further enemy aggression, whereas today building up an aura of personal dread does not have the same value. The mass killing of enemies had different effects and served different purposes to that of the 20th century. Had Basil been unsuccessful he would have expected similar treatment at the hands of the Bulgars. They would have descended into the Balkan possessions, massacred, raping and pillagin at will. It is doubtful that had the Byzantine army under Nicephorus I at Pliska been given the chance to surrender that the Bulgars would have accepted their capitulation or treated them well. Both you and I know all too well what became of Nicephorus himself. Essentially Basil II was playing by the "rules of the game" as they pertained to the Balkans in the Dark Ages. Basil's cruelty took an unsual form, but the amount of cruelty which he employed was nothing unusual in his context. I think that Genghis and Hitler metted out cruelty in a manner and on a scale which was exceptional and unusual for their respective contexts.

Originally posted by Komnenos Can the same criteria for an ethical judgment be used for very different ages and their very different moral values? Or is there indeed something like a cut-off point in the history, from where the same excuses can not be brought forward anymore. Made for example, the �enlightenment project� all the difference? Could before the �enlightenment� the mass slaughter of entire civilian populations by the various Early Medieval conquerors be comprehended or excused with the blessed ignorance of enduring moral values or human rights at the time, but can similar undertakings in the 20th centuries not be apologized anymore and not be explained other than by a sheer barbarism that defies any progress made by human civilization ?

As human morals and ethics are a work in progress, I believe a number of changes had to occur before we arrived at today's values. The stabalisation of the world into defined states whose governments have proper control over international conflict post-Westphalia naturally raises the standard of ethics for what can occur in war. After that, a ruler must employ diplomacy and good will as well as military power to achieve peace. Byzantium endured incessant raids and attacks by her enemies not controlled by a government body in the uncentralised Dark Ages, consequently building up a reputation of personal dread was a good way of discouraging such attacks.

The enlightenment was another important step in civilising people. It made people more aware of the fact that their actions should be guided by logic and reason. In Basil's context, nearly 700 years of history recognised that he was the vice gerent of God. Other European rulers also believed themself to be the elect of God. After the enlightenment people had a firm basis to make their decisions on logic and reason, in Basil's time the ultimate authority rested with the deity. In an age before science and the enlightenment, we can hardly expect Basil to have adhered to such principles.

As I mentioned the UN and Geneva convention are important sources of benchmarks to decide what is right and wrong. In Basil's time such institutions did not exist so we cannot expect him to abide by them.

Other developments also took place which had the effect of "raising the bar" when it came to ethics in war and conquest. Because Basil had not been influenced by such developments, I consider it unfair that we hold him accountable in the same light as someone like Hitler, who lived in a world where such developments were an established reality. In assessing whether modern figures are guilty according to "our" norms, we must establish the norms of the society they live in and how much we could expect such figures to have been influenced by the "civilizing" developments that I mentioned. Milosevic, for example, may either live in a society with similar norms to ours but be an unusually uncivilized individual. Or he may be a normal man living in a society which we would call "ethically underdeveloped" and "uncivilised" compared to ours. Or we may decide he is a mixture of the two.

Originally posted by Komnenos Or in other words, what finer legal points had Heraclius and Constantine to come up with to get him off, had Basil lived through the 19th ,20th century Balkan wars. And had he risen in the rankings if he had been born later?

I think my previous paragraphs explain my position on Basil quite well. But I would also add in Basil's defence some key points.

While Genghis and Hitler both killed for pragmatic reasons, they are notorious for going overboard and killing on both a scale and in a manner which was shocking by the standards of the time. Basil's actions were unusual only in manner (it would have been more typical to simply slaughter all the prisoners after the battle). In blinding the prisoners it must have been in the Emperor's mind that Bulgaria had managed to resurrect herself a number of times after being crushed by Byzantium. Constantine V brought the Bulgars to their knees but died before he could finish them off. They subsequently revived and returned to give Byzantium much grief. Basil's immediate predecessor John I had similarly crushed them, but a civil war early in Basil's reign was all it took for the Bulgars to come back stronger than ever. Basil knew he had to deal them a decisive blow from which they could not recover or his successors would more than likely be facing a resurgent Bulgaria once more. The action he took was effective and decisive, Bulgaria was not to trouble Byzantium for two entire centuries until long years of misrule allowed the region to detach itself from Byzantium.

As I said earlier, Basil did not visit unnecessary cruelty or punishment on the non-combatant Bulgars once victory was assured. The blindings deprived Bulgaria of their best fighting men with the eventual result that thousands of deaths due to future raiding and war were averted. The blindings at Kleidion (Cimbalongus) seem to have been an isolated case of cruelty designed to achieve a pragmatic end of finishing a war which had dragged on for nearly four decades. It was not part of a wider policy of human rights violations by Basil.

Those are the reasons I do not consider Basil's actions as bad as those committed by modern war criminals. Basil acted within the norms of his time, was not exposed to today's civilising influences, acted out of pragmatic intentions to improve his nation's welfare and subsequently proved himself to be a wise and considerate ruler once Bulgaria was subdued.

Had he been born later amidst more "civilised" norms we could expect to assess him differently. Today we could expect to judge him much more harshly. Today the avenues for protecting your nation and doing your duty as leader are different, opportunities exist today for Basil to protect his state which did not exist in medieval Bulgaria.

No he was not evil for the time period.  The reasons why have been explained quite well by other forumers. 

I have made a clipse of what were you wrote to now and I can't see what do you think is the reason to blind 15 000 men.during the Kliuch battle a bulogarian group succede to strike in back Elite Imperial group where leader was Basill's best friend(and may be his successor.When Basil understood he was very fureous and ordered to blind Bulgarian prisoners.This is the reason(of course not 100%)But basil was realy far-sighted and I think he wouldn blind them if he was not under control of fureousness.                     

                                       Sorry for bad English

 

No he was not evil. Just hardcore.

Here is a miniature depicting the blinding of the Bulgarians.




The deads of Vasil also served as an inspiration for the destruction of  the Bulgarian people in Macedonia during the Balkan wars. Here is a Greek propaganda image in another war with the Bulgarians, this time several centuries later (1910s Balkan wars).



The legacy of Vasil II remains strong still. There are streets in Greece named "Vasil Bulgarslayer".

In my eyes Vasil II was an evil bloodthirsty barbarian, a torturer with a perverted mind, the medieval equivalent of Hitler.


Edited by bg_turk - 23-Jun-2006 at 17:30