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The year 1014 decided the fate of Samuel, his state and his
empire. Until that year, as Skylidzes has written, Basil had not ceased
his annual invasion's into and pillaging of Bulgaria. Upon Samuel's realisation
that he was neither able to offer resistance in wide-open areas, nor to
engage in open battle with the emperor, and when he was under pressure
from all sides and lost his strength, he decided to obstruct Basil's incursion
into Bulgaria by means of meticulously designed ditches and trenches. Knowing
that the Byzantine emperor would be approaching through the Cimbalongus
and Kleidion Passes, Samuel reinforced them with a wide trench and blocked
them off with towers, which he secured by the presence of a strong and
well-armed garrison. Having thus closed Basil's access by the construction
of this wide fortification and the deployment of guards, he was prepared
to await the emperor's arrival.
When Basil reached the ravines, intending to pass through
them, Samuel's troops fell upon them from the surrounding hills. Fighting
heroically, they raided the attackers from their positions above, killing
and wounding great numbers of enemy soldiers. Just as Basil was contemplating
his retreat and his next move, his camp was visited by strategus (Theophilactos)
Botaniates, the successor of David Aryanites, Duke of Solun. The reason
for the strategus arrival was that Samuel, having heard of Basil's intended
invasion of Bulgaria, had decided to wage war on two fronts simultaneously,
aiming at dividing and thereby weakening the forces of his arch-enemy.
Therefore, he took his ultimate risk and dispatched Nestorica, one of the
"Bulgarian's" most influential notables, to Solun together with a large
army. Ready and waiting for him, however, were Theophylactos Botaniates
and his son Michael. They forcefully repelled and then routed Samuel's
commander and his troops, taking much booty and a great number of prisoners.
Michael Attaliates, an admirer of the Botniates family,
describes in an especially lauditory and vivid manner this battle in which
Michael Botaniates proved himself in the defence of the "capital city of
Solun". Theophylactos had demonstrated his worth in innumerable endeavours
and armed conflicts, where he had been Basil's sole comrade, assistant
and counsellor, as well as a very competent military commander.
Even if these facts are only partially accurate, one
can nonetheless comprehend the support and elan with which Botaniates imbued
the emperor when he arrived, flushed with victory and bearing much war
booty. As soon as he entered the fiels of battle, he began to repel Samuel's
troops toward the Kleidin Pass, where Basil was besieging the fortification.
Nicephorus Xyphius, then the strategus of Philipopolis (Plovdiv) who was
fighting alongside the emperor, advised Basil to remain in place and to
continue attacking the fortification. In the meantime, as skilfully as
possible, Zyphis would position himself on the other side of the Bulgarian's.
Leading his troops, he strategus circumlocuted the high mountain - Mt.
Belasica to the south of Kleidin. On the 29 July (indiction 12), having
crossed steep and seemingly behind the Macedonians.
As Samuel's soldiers were completely surprised by this
appearance, they were seized by fear and began to flee. The emperor then
passed through the abandoned fortifications in pursuit of the enemy and
engaged in a battle, where many soldiers lost their lives, and a greater
number of prisoner fell. Samuel himself, however, only barely escaped the
danger of being imprisoned through the help of his son, who bravely fought
off the Byzantine attackers, while mounting his father on a horse and taking
him to the fortress of Prilep. This Byzantine victory represented such
a decisive defeat that Samuel was never able to recover, thus, signalling
the beginning of the end of Samuels' state.
Not only did Basil achieve total victory over his enemy,
who in his characteristic fashion had saved himself only through flight,
but he also took an enormous number of Samuel's troops (an estimated 15,000)
as prisoners-of-war. Basil issued a command that these prisoners have their
eyes gouged out, and at the head of every 100 of these pitiful soldiers,
he placed one man with only a single eye.
Led in this manner, Basil sent all of Samuel's men back
to him. When Samuel saw them approaching in such numbers and in such a
formation, he could not bear the sight neither bravely or quietly and fell
to the ground in an ill faint. His comrades soon revived him with water
and smelling salts, from which he somewhat recovered. As soon as Samuel
had collected himself sufficiently, he requested a swallow of cold water.
However, immediately upon drinking it, he suffered a heart attack, and
two days later he was dead. Such is Skylidzes description of that tragic
scene, where as Mihajlo Devolski only states that Samuel died on 6 October
1014.
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