John I Tzimiskes

John I Tzimiskes was born around 925 and rose through the Byzantine military, marrying into the powerful Skleros family along the way. He seized the throne in 969 and immediately put his instincts as a general to work. He drove Sviatoslav I and the Rus' out of Thrace, then turned south and took Syria from the Fatimids. By the time he died on 10 January 976, he had expanded the empire's borders through a string of campaigns that rarely failed. Seven years on the throne, all of them spent consolidating what force had won.