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Biography of Basil, I
Name: Basil, I
Birth Date: c. 812
Death Date: August 29, 886
Place of Birth: Thrace
Nationality: Byzantine
Gender: Male
Occupations: emperor
Basil, I
The Byzantine emperor Basil I (ca. 812-886), also known as Basil the Macedonian, ruled from 867 to 886. Despite his unsavory rise to power, he was a gifted statesman who gave the empire new vigor and began its most durable dynasty.Of obscure Armenian parentage, Basil was born in Thrace. According to one tradition, he was carried off into captivity by the Bulgars while an infant; escaping in his 20s, he sought his fortune in Constantinople and took service with a kinsman of the Caesar Bardas, uncle and guiding influence of Emperor Michael III. About 858 Basil attracted the attention of the Emperor through his great physical strength and his way with horses. He rapidly rose to high ranks, became Michael's boon companion, and in an arrangement of convenience married the Emperor's mistress.Basil's influence grew, and his ambition was kindled. In May 866 Michael proclaimed Basil his co-emperor. Allegedly because of Michael's incapacity but …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…was the first emperor in perhaps 2 centuries to reassert Byzantine interest in Italy. His dispatch of the general Nicephorus Phocas (the Elder) to Italy inaugurated a new era of Byzantine recovery in the peninsula's southern territories.Determined to establish his family on the throne, Basil made his three eldest sons his co-emperors. But in 879 Constantine, the eldest and Basil's favorite, died, and Basil was left emotionally shattered and mentally unhinged. Increasingly manipulated by Photius and alienated from his heir, Leo, Basil died on Aug. 29, 886, reportedly of a hunting accident. Further Reading The only full-length study of Basil I is by Albert Vogt in French. Vogt wrote the account of Basil in The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 4 (1923). See also George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (1940; trans. 1956; rev. ed. 1969); The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 4 (2d ed. 1966), pt. 1, edited by J. M. Hussey; and Romilly Jenkins, Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, A.D. 610-1071 (1966).
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