Battle of Arcadiopolis (970)

A miniature from John Skylitzes.

The Battle of Arcadiopolis was fought in 970 between the Byzantine army under Bardas Sklerus and the anti-Byzantine coalition, led by Sviatoslav I of Kiev.

According to the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent to Constantinople a curt message: "I come upon you!" The vanguard of the Rus approached the Byzantine capital. The panic of the citizens is reflected in the well-known epitaph on the tomb of Nicephorus Phocas. Its author, Metropolitan John, started with the words "You conquered all but a woman!" and finished with a heartfelt plea to the spirit of the great warrior to save Byzantium from the dreadful Scythians who were nearing the walls of its capital.

The two armies clashed near Arcadiopolis, about 100 kilometres west of Constantinople. John Skylitzes testifies that the barbarians were divided into three armies, each numbering about ten thousand troops. The first army consisted from the "Moesians" (i.e., Bulgarians) and "Scythians" (i.e., the Rus). The second army was "Turkish" (i.e., Hungarian). The "Huns" (i.e., the Pechenegs) constituted the third army, which was the first to take flight. The Byzantine historians report as many as 20,000 casualties sustained by the anti-Byzantine coalition during the battle, a figure considered by most modern commentators to have been grossly inflated.

Despite this success (spectacularly magnified in Greek sources), Sklerus was revoked from the army in order to deal with the rebellion of Bardas Phocas. In the next year, the Byzantines took Preslav and besieged Svyatoslav in Dorostolon.

References

• Andrey Nikolayevich Sakharov. The Diplomacy of Svyatoslav. Moscow: International Relations, 1982.
• Fyodor Uspensky. The History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 2. Moscow: Mysl, 1997.