Battle of the Gates of Trajan

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The battle of the Gates of Trajan (Bulgarian: Битката при Траянови Врата, Μάχη στις Πύλες του Τραϊανού) was a battle between Byzantine and Bulgarian forces in the year 986. It took place in the pass of the same name, modern Trayanovi Vrata, at Sofia Province, Bulgaria. It was the largest defeat of Basil II. After the unsuccessful siege of Sofia he had to retreat to Thrace but the Bulgarian army under the command of Samuil surrounded the Byzantines in the Sredna Gora mountains. The Byzantine army was annihilated and Basil II barely escaped.

Fifteen years after the fall of the Bulgarian capital Preslav the victory at the Gates of Trajan strengthened the success achieved since 976. In constant war with the Byzantine Empire, the First Bulgarian Empire survived for several more decades and its capital was moved from Preslav to the north-east to Ohrid to the south-west. The memory for the great victory against Basil II was affected thirty years later in the Bitola inscription of Ivan Vladislav (1015-1018), the son of Aron.

Historical sources

Except for the Bitola inscription where the victory of Samuil is mentioned in short, several Medieval historians have written accounts for the battle. Among them were Leo the Deacon who was an eyewitness and a direct participant in the campaign; John Skylitzes and two other historians George Kedrin and John Zonaras who repeat the work of Skylitzes. Not only Byzantine historians wrote accounts for the battle, it was recorded by the Arab chronicler Yahaya of Antioch and the Armenians Stephen of Taron (also known as Asolic) and Mathew of Edessa. More details can be found in the commended sermon of Saint Photius of Thessaly.

Origins of the conflict

The war against Bulgaria was the first major action done by Basil II after his ascension to the throne in 976, although the Bulgarian attacks began since that year. One of the reasons for that ten-year inaction was the policy of one of the strongest nobles in Byzantium Basil who de facto ruled the Byzantine Empire in the first years of his namesake. During that time the main objective for the government in Constantinople was to crush the rebellion of the military commander Bardas Skleros in Asia Minor between 976 and 979.

The local Byzantine governors were left alone to cope with the Bulgarian threat but they were unable to stop the Bulgarians. The positions of the brothers Samuil and Aron (the two eldest brothers David and Moses died soon after the beginning of the great offensive in 976) were strengthened not only by the rebellion of Skleros but also the neglect of the former Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces towards the south-western Bulgarian lands. After the fall of Preslav and the north-eastern areas of the Bulgarian Empire his main priority became the war against the Arabs in Syria which gave the Bulgarians to prepare for a long struggle from the center of the remaining parts of the Empire around the Ohrid and Prespa Lakes.

For one decade after 976 the Bulgarians achieved major successes. Samuil managed to liberate north-eastern Bulgaria. Between 982 - 986 the Bulgarians seized the main city of Thessaly (in contemporary Greece), Larissa. The constant Bulgarian attacks forced Basil II to take serious actions.

Siege of Sredets

In 986 Basil II led a campaign with 30,000 or 60,000 soldiers. The commanders of the eastern armies did not take part in the campaign because they were fighting with the Arabs. The Byzantines marched from Odrin via Plovdiv to reach Sredets (Sofia). According to Leo Diaconus the objective of their Emperor was to cope with the Bulgarians with one strike.. After the capture of Serdica which was a strategic fortress between the northeastern and south-western Bulgarian lands Basil II intended to continue his campaign towards Samuil's main stronholds in Macedonia.

On his way to Serdica Basil II left a strong company under Leo Melisin to guard the rear of the Byzantine army. When he finally reached the walls of the city Basil II built a fortified camp and besieged the fortress. The siege lasted for 20 days of fruitless assaults until shortage of food occurred in the Byzantine army. Their attempts to find provisions in the surrounding country were stopped by the Bulgarians who put the crops into fire and even took the cattle of the Byzantines. In the end the city garrison broke out of the walls killing many enemy soldiers and burned all of the siege equipment which was placed by the unexperienced Byzantine generals too close to the city walls.

The battle

As a result of the successful Bulgarian actions the Byzantines the no longer capable of taking the city with a direct assault. They also could not exhaust the defenders with hunger because after they supplies were cut, the Byzantines themselves had to cope with that problem. In addition to those reasons one more occurred - an army led by Samuil marched in the mountains at the Byzantines rear. In the meantime instead of securing the way for retreat, Leo Melisin pulled back to Plovdiv. That fact was an additional reason for Basil II to raise the siege. The commander of the Western armies Kondostephan persuaded him that Melisin had set off to Constantinople to take his throne.

The Byzantine army retreated from the Sofia valley towards Ihtiman where it stopped for the night. The rumours that the Bulgarians had barred the nearby mountain routes stirred commotion among the soldiers and on the following day the retreat continued in growing disorder. When the Bulgarians under Samuil and probably Roman saw that they rushed to the enemy camp and the retreat turned to flight. The Byzantine advanced guard managed to squeeze through the slopes which were not yet taken by the attackers. The rest of the army was surrounded by the Bulgarians. Only the elite Armenian unit from the infantry managed to break out with heavy casualties and to lead their Emperor to safety through secondary routes. Enormous numbers of Byzantine soldiers perished in the battle, the rest were captured along the Imperial insignia.

Aftermath

The disaster of the campaign in Bulgaria in 986 was a blow to the consolidation of the monocracy of Basil II. Soon after the battle of the Trojan Gates the nobility in Asia Minor rebelled against Basil II for three years.

According to the historian Peter Mutafchiev after the battle Samuil controlled the situation of the Balkans. According to some historians the north-eastern parts of the Bulgarian Empire were liberated in the years after the battle. However according to other sources they were liberated ten years prior to the battle in 976. The Bulgarians firmly took the initiative and launched continuous attacks towards Solun, Edessa and the Adriatic coast. The Serbs were also defeated and their state incorporated in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian military superiority was overcome by the Byzantines after the battle of Spercheios in 996. Again according to Petar Mutafchiev the battle only postponed the fall of Bulgaria which occurred in 1018.

Footnotes

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Last updated on Wednesday February 20, 2008 at 05:58:12 PST (GMT -0800)
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