Nicephorus II Phocas summary

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Nicephorus II Phocas , (born 912, Cappadocia—died Dec. 10/11, 969, Constantinople), Byzantine emperor (963–969). A powerful military commander, he fought the Arabs in the east, liberated Crete from its Arab rulers (961), and gained control of the eastern Mediterranean. After the death of Romanus II, Nicephorus cooperated in a plot to seize the throne, accepting the crown (963) and marrying Theophano, the regent of the two legitimate heirs. He continued his exploits against the Arabs but was surrounded by discontent and intrigue at home; he retired to a fortified palace, where he was killed by former friends guided by his wife and his chief lieutenant.

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Emperor, title designating the sovereign of an empire, conferred originally on rulers of the ancient Roman Empire and on various later European rulers, though the term is also applied descriptively to some non-European monarchs. In republican Rome (c. 509–27 bce), imperator denoted a victorious

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Army, a large organized armed force trained for war, especially on land. The term may be applied to a large unit organized for independent action, or it may be applied to a nation’s or ruler’s complete military organization for land warfare. Throughout history, the character and organization of

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Government, the political system by which a country or community is administered and regulated. Most of the key words commonly used to describe governments—words such as monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy—are of Greek or Roman origin. They have been current for more than 2,000 years and have not

Byzantine Empire Summary

Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which survived for a thousand years after the western half had crumbled into various feudal kingdoms and which finally fell to Ottoman Turkish onslaughts in 1453. The very name Byzantine illustrates the misconceptions to which the empire’s