Was Basil II of Byzantium Evil?

I do not see how he would have been evil, when he did not necesarily do anything that is contrary to contemporary society's standards and values. If he had been a contemporary political figure, and blinded tens of thousands of POWs then that would be a different case, and one would see at least a facet of cruelty, and "evil" for the lack of a better word in the deed. Now to apply that to a time period in history, where he could have just sold them into slavery, or even killed them, blinding does not seem such a bad option. When you look at it from that perspective, he spared their lives, and they retained their freedom. Basil II was under a lot of pressure to stabilize the Eastern Empire, Bulgaria had been a part of the Empire for hundreds of years. These territories fell to the Romans before Marinus even. He saw it as a right to own it, not to mention that simply sending the soldiers back and requesting tribute, or ransom would still leave half of the Balkan frontier open to another attack by a farily competitive, very agressive, and comptetent foe. He was a competent, calculating, and capable ruler; simply put he had a problem at hand, one that if handled any other way, would haunt him, or another sucessor, and Basil being the statesman he had been, he simply put two and two togheter, and opted to solve the problem more or less permamently, a sucess when you look at it that way considering that Bulgaria became a province of the Empire for generations to come. He was not evil for his time at all, he was generous, he could have done much worse. The Bulgarian armies sucumbed to rapine and pillaging on their campaigns, he did neither, he went to the heart of the matter, the armed forces and dealt with a military issue. Salah ad-Din did the same when he executed Templars, they were the creme de la creme of the Crusader states, they were formidable, zelous, and competent Knights, that would trouble him in sucessive campaigns so he opted for the solution that would rid him of that nuissance, not to mention that it was a political action just as Basil's had been for both the home front and the foe's alike.

I dont think that the Byzantine soldiers would  pillage the cities which they owned -shortly lost to bulgarian rulers- nor they would rape the women and children who were going to be citizens of their empire.The only massive rape commited by the Byzantines was in the battlefield ...

Originally posted by Anton The Bulgarian armies sucumbed to rapine and pillaging on their campaigns,   but   he did neither     How is that??? Do you really believe that rapings and pillagings were a prerogative of "barbarian" armies like Bulgarians but not army of Byzantines?

Originally posted by Anton Originally posted by es_bih   In this particular case that was fact.   What particular case? Bulgarians of Samuil and Byzantines of Basil or just Bulgarians and Byzantines? In any case I would like to ask you to post some proofs for that. I don't want to say that Bulgarians were friendly peacemakers but Byzantine warriors were not angels either. Remember what Nicephorus did in Pliska?

Do you have any sources to proove that?

Ioannes Zonaras

A well-known Byzantine chronicler, Ioannes Zonaras lived in the first half of the twelfth century. In his writings he recorded in detail the wars fought by the Bulgarian Tsar Samuil and the Byzantine Emperor Basilius II. The excerpt here recounts the infamous episode involving the blinding of Samnil's soldiers and the subsequent occupation of the country. The truth of the account is at-tested by Scylitzes, another contemporary Byzantine chronicler, and explains Basilius' nickname Bulgaroktonos, which means "Slayer of the Bulgars." The onginal is in Greek and comes from Zonaras's Epitomae Historiarum (1897).

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JOANNES ZONARAS RECOUNTS HOW BASILIUS 11 BLINDED THE BULGARIAN SOLDIERS OF SAMUIL AND CONQUERED THE WHOLE OF BULGARIA

The Emperor frequently attacked Bulgaria, caused damages and devastated it. Samuil, unable to oppose the Byzantine army, tried to block the roads for him by ditches, while barring the gorges with for-tifications and putting guards in them. And so the emperor came again and tried to enter by force but was repulsed by the guards who put up a valiant resistance. He did not give up his attempt, however, and remained there so as to take the fortification, sending one of the commanders with his subordinated detachment in another direction to see if he could make a detour and find some way for invasion. And he, passing across many mountains and steep slopes, attacked the guard of the fortification in the rear unnoticed by the Bulgarians, who, taken by surprise, did not care any longer for the defense of the fortification but thought only how to save themselves from ruin. Then the Byzantine army without fear broke the palisades, passed through and started a pursuit. Many were slain and many more were captured, and Samuil had a narrow escape. The Emperor gouged out the eyes of all prisoners, numbering about 15,000 men, save for one in every hundred to guide them and ordered them to go to their leader. On seeing them and unable to stand the pain, he lost con-sciousness and fell insensible to the ground. After recovering slightly, he was taken ill with heart trouble and died. The supreme power over the Bulgarians now passed on to his son Gavril Romanus, who, without having ruled even one year, was murdered by his uncle Aaron's son Ivan Vladislav, who also had two names. And so the Em-peror, having crossed, as I said, the fortification in the gorges, cap-tured many other fortified localities together with the Bulgarians in them and went to Mosynopole, where he was informed of Samuil's death. He then immediately moved on, attacked Bulgaria and cap-tured towns and fortresses. Samnil's son Gavril Romanus, who was not killed yet, sent envoys to the Emperor and promised to obey him. But after a certain time a servant of Ivan Vladislav's, the murderer of Gavril, arrived and announced the murder of Samuil's son and carried a letter promising submission to the Emperor. He was also joined by many prominent Bulgarians. Understanding that Vladislav had no intention of fulfilling his promise, the Emperor again set out against Bulgaria, ravaged much of her land, by siege took the town of Okhrid where the palaces of the Bulgarian Tsars stood, and through his military commanders seized other fortresses by siege, and then re-turned to Constantinople.

http://turtei.lozev.com/plamen/bg_cd/webbul/zonaras.htm

Originally posted by es_bih Does not prove the claim that he was evil

Originally posted by Athanasios Krum should had his dogs fitted more often i suppose. Anyway it was the greatest byzantine loss...and it was not even a battle.

Originally posted by Athanasios 1. He was an ignorrant barbar and personally i don't care if he was Christian or not.

Did I mix Tervel with Krum? Shame