Battle of Spercheios

Battle of Spercheios
Part of the Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars
Bulgars put to flight by Ouranos at the Spercheios River from the Chronicle of John Skylitzes
Date 16 July 997 Location Spercheios river, Greece Result Byzantine victory
Belligerents
Bulgarian Empire	Byzantine Empire
Commanders and leaders
Samuil of Bulgaria Gavril Radomir	Nikephoros Ouranos
Casualties and losses
~1,000 killed, ~12,000 captured	unknown

The Battle of Spercheios (Bulgarian: Битка при Сперхей, Greek: Μάχη του Σπερχειού) took place in 997 AD, on the shores of the Spercheios river near the city of Lamia in central Greece. It was fought between a Bulgarian army led by Tsar Samuil, that in the previous year had penetrated south into Greece, and a Byzantine army under the command of general Nikephoros Ouranos. The Byzantine victory virtually destroyed the Bulgarian army, and stopped its raids in the southern Balkans and Greece. The major historical source on the battle comes from Greek historian John Skylitzes whose Synopsis of Histories (Σύνοψις Ἱστοριῶν) contains a biography of the then reigning Byzantine Emperor, Basil II.

After the success of the Bulgarians in the Battle of the Gates of Trajan in 986, Byzantium descended into a civil war, further exacerbated by the conflict with the Fatimids in Syria. Tsar Samuil took advantage of the situation. He managed to seize many castles in the surroundings of Byzantium's second largest city, Thessalonica. In 991 the Byzantines managed to capture Roman of Bulgaria but this did not stop Samuil who was now de facto the only emperor of Bulgaria. In 996 Samuil defeated the forces of the strategos of Thessalonica and marched to the south, eventually threatening Larissa and Corinth.

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