Battle of Spercheios

Battle of Spercheios
Part of the Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars
Bulgarians 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, which in the previous year had penetrated south into Greece, and a Byzantine army under the command of general Nikephoros Ouranos.^[1] The Byzantine victory virtually destroyed the Bulgarian army, and ended 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.