A History of the Byzantine Empire

When john died suddenly aged just 50, basil was on the cusp of coming of age to lead the empire in his own right as a young adult. The byzantines had sneaked into bulgaria after the kievenross invasion and kicked them out,. But a large portion of the land of the bulgarian empire remain nd unconquered - mainly this was based in and around macedonia. In order for both nicoforos and john to rule relatively legitimately, they would need to rule alongside the child emperor basil. One of the important eunuchs of the byzantine court was a man called basil the chamberlain. And he went behind the