Syrian campaigns of John Tzimiskes
The Mesopotamian campaigns of John Tzimiskes were a series of campaigns undertaken by the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes against the Fatimid Caliphate in the Levant and against the Abbasid Caliphate in Syria. Following the weakening and collapse of the Hamdanid Dynasty of Aleppo, much of the Near East lay open to Byzantium, and, following the assassination of Nikephoros II Phokas, the new emperor, John Tzimiskes, was quick to engage the newly successful Fatimid Dynasty over control of the near east and its important cities, namely Antioch, Aleppo, and Caesarea. He also engaged the Hamdanid Emir of Mosul, who was de jure under the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and his Buyid overlords, over control of parts of Upper Mesopotamia (Jazira).
John Tzimiskes receiving ambassadors from the Rus, miniature from the Madrid Skylitzes.
John I Tzimiskes was the senior Byzantine emperor from 969 to 976. An intuitive and successful general who married into the influential Skleros family, he strengthened and expanded the Byzantine Empire to include Thrace and Syria by warring with the Rus' under Sviatoslav I and the Fatimids respectively.
Detail of the Gunthertuch, a Byzantine silk tapestry depicting John Tzimiskes being greeted by the Blues and Greens at a triumph.
Tentative reproduction of the lost portrait of John I. He's depicted beardless, although literary sources describe him as having a reddish/blonde facial hair.
The coronation of John Tzimiskes, from the Madrid Skylitzes
The Byzantine army under John I lays siege to the Bulgarian capital at Preslav.
