Basil II (The Bulgar Slayer)

Basil II, of the illustrious Macedonian Dynasty, was the longest-reigning Emperor in Byzantine history (governing for nearly fifty years from 976 to 1025 CE). Ascending the throne amidst aristocratic revolts, Basil forged an austere, monk-like discipline: he never married, shunned luxury, lived in soldier's armor, and forged an alliance with Prince Vladimir of Kiev, baptizing Kievan Rus' into Orthodox Christianity and creating the legendary Varangian Guard of Norse warriors as his personal bodyguard.

For over two decades, Basil waged relentless annual campaigns against the Bulgarian Empire of Tsar Samuel. In 1014, at the Battle of Kleidion, Basil trapped and crushed the Bulgarian army. Annexing the entire Balkan peninsula up to the Danube for the first time in four centuries, he earned the fearsome epitaph Boulgaroktonos ('Bulgar Slayer'). Protecting the peasant smallholders from predatory magnates, Basil filled the imperial treasury with massive surpluses of gold and extended Byzantine borders from southern Italy to Armenia. Rejecting burial in the imperial mausoleum, he requested entombment in a simple church outside the city where soldiers assembled.