Basil I

Born in 811 to a peasant family in Macedonia, Basil climbed into the inner circle of Emperor Michael III, who ordered him to marry the imperial mistress. Michael made him co-emperor in 866. A year later, fearing his own eclipse, Basil had Michael assassinated and took sole power. The move was ruthless, but his reign proved capable: he launched a wholesale revision of Byzantine law that became the Basilika, crushed the Paulician heretics in 872, and pushed Byzantine influence back into Italy through alliance with the Carolingians. He died in a hunting accident in 886. His son Leo VI inherited t…