On August 29, 886 AD. A man died after contracting a fever as a result of a terrible accident during a hunt. His belt had caught on the antlers of a deer and the animal dragged him through the forest for several kilometers until help finally arrived, although the unpleasant experience led to his death in hindsight . That man was nothing less than the almighty Basil I, emperor of Byzantium, whose main characteristic was having reached the throne despite his status as a humble peasant.
This radical social ascent was not a unique case in history and, for example, not long ago we saw that of Nader Shah, who had certain similarities. But it is common for this type of character to make a name for his military conquests, above all, and although Basilio did not have the opportunity to prove it personally, his reign was distinguished both by the military power achieved and by the successful government management that he carried out. , favoring a period of political and cultural splendor in the Byzantine Empire.
Given his origin, it is difficult to know for sure how his childhood passed. The exact date of his birth is unknown, which is calculated between the years 811 and the thirties of that 9th century, which occurred in Chariopolis, a Roman city that today corresponds to the Turkish Hayrabolu (in the European part of the country) and which was then part of the thema Macedonian Byzantine (the thema constituted the basic unit into which the empire was administratively divided, replacing the province since the reform of Heraclius two hundred years earlier).
In fact, the name of his father is not even known; only that of his mother, Pankalo, of Greek etymology. His ethnicity is also unclear. Of course, during his reign an origin linked to the Arsacid royal dynasty, that is, from Armenia, was attributed to him, but Arab historiography (Hamza al-Isfahânî, al-Tabari) considered him Slavic, a generic name applied to natives. of Thrace (which included areas of present-day Bulgaria, mainland Turkey, and northern Greece). There are those who harmonize both theses suggesting that his father was an Armenian established in Byzantine Thrace.
It was also said that Basilio's family was captive of the Bulgarian prince Krum, founder of the homonymous dynasty, originally from Pannonia or Macedonia, who pacified Bulgaria, endowed it with his first corpus legislature and turned it into a thriving kingdom constraining the extension of the Byzantine Empire. In any case, Basil had to escape and get himself named page of Theophilitzes, who was a relative of Caesar Bardas. In Byzantium the term caesar it was equivalent to that of prince or regent; Bardas, as the brother of the former Empress Theodora and uncle of Emperor Michael III, promised to be a guarantee for the new destiny of the young Basil. However, he was only in the service of Theophilitzes for a short time because during a visit to Patras he won the favor of a wealthy widow named Danielis who later bequeathed her fortune to him. 
In this way, we already have the peasant turned into a rich great man. Once the economic factor was fixed, the social and political factors remained. The solution to the second came through an unexpected route:sports. Basilio proved to have a special ability for wrestling and won several championships, so he struck up a friendship with Miguel III, who proved to be very fond of him and joined the Manglabitas , your bodyguard personal, like parakoimomenos (literally he who sleeps by the Emperor's chamber ).
Ultimately, his improvement in social position came to fruition in 865, when Michael forced him to divorce his modest wife, Maria, and marry his own concubine, Eudoxia Ingerina, to silence reproaches. continua of Theodora. Thus, he managed to secure his place at court and the following year, as a trusted man, he was in charge of assassinating the aforementioned Bardas, who was suspected of conspiring to seize power, assuming his position as Caesar. Furthermore, on May 26, 866, Miguel associated him with the throne, adopting him.
Everything seemed to be going well, but there was a shadow that clouded that relationship between the two:in September Eudoxia gave birth to a boy whom they baptized Leon and Basilio always suspected that he was actually the son of the emperor, who would continue to see her. Whether it was true or not, everyone thought the same and on top of that he began to receive insinuations about renouncing his right to succession in favor of the newborn. This hard-won position was in jeopardy, aggravated when Miguel began to turn his attention to a new favourite, Basiliskiano, another courtier who was said to have started from the bottom, as a simple oarsman (although others identified him as the brother of Constantine Kapnogene). , city prefect).
A significant event definitively convinced Basilio:during the chariot races organized to celebrate the birth of León, Basiliskiano, who was already dressed in imperial attire, acclaimed the emperor so loudly that he, flattered, took off his red boots exclusive to his office. and made the other wear them. Basilio did not hide his displeasure, Miguel reproached him and the relationship was irretrievably broken. The emperor's great mistake was not realizing that his physical integrity depended on who, after all, was his escort. And whose ambition knew no bounds.
In September 867, exactly one year later, Basil jumped at the chance when Michael and Basiliskiano slept completely drunk after one of his banquets. Aided by his brother Marino and his cousin Ayleon, he assassinated them and since he was still co-emperor he became basileus culminating his career. There was no problem in the succession because the crime took place in another city, Santa Mamas, and also everyone detested the debauchery of the deceased, who had neglected his responsibility as ruler, leaving the administration in chaos. Even his alias was very expressive: El Beodo .
Nobody trusted that Basilio was a good monarch, given his lack of education and his inexperience, both military and administrative. He, too, did not promise the messy life he had led until then, with Miguel's sister, Thecla, as his lover and forced to participate in the degrading palace parties. But everyone was wrong. Basilio reigned nineteen years, inaugurating a new dynasty, the Macedonian, which would not be extinguished until the year 1057 (when it was replaced by the Commenos) and which would provide the empire with its period of greatest power and extension.
His legislative work, which earned him comparison to Justinian, was reflected in a sixty-volume magnum opus entitled Basilika and in legal manuals Prochiron and Eisagoge , all these works that were not compiled and published until after his death at the initiative of Leo but that were in force while the Byzantine Empire lasted. Justinian's reference was, in fact, a constant for him; That is why he promoted a vast architectural program aimed at beautifying the capital and whose best representation was the construction of the Cathedral of Nea Ekklesia between 876 and 880.
It should not be surprising that this temple, the first monumental to be erected since Santa Sofía, became the emblem of that government, since a new stage of religious exaltation was entered from the very proclamation of the new president, when he personally dedicated his crowns Christ, marking distances with his immoral predecessor. In this sense, he began an approach to the Roman Church by replacing Ignatius I as patriarch, who had the approval of Pope Adrian II, to the detriment of the incumbent, Photius, guaranteeing good relations between the two churches until the death of the first and the reappointment of Photius, which would forever separate Catholics and Orthodox.
Also related to faith was the war against the Paulicians, a Manichaean Christian sect originating in Armenia that, in a strange confluence with other heterodox creeds, would later (in the 11th century) unite in Thrace a Bulgarian priest named Bogomilo; Under the name of Bogomilism, it had an ascetic and Gnostic character. However, before that, the Paulicians were defeated in 872.
Weapons also had to be used to confront Islamic expansionism in Asia Minor, recovering Cyprus (although only for seven years) and marking the border against an enemy that would eventually become the empire's nightmare. Likewise, given the strength with which Basil endowed his army, which made them expand throughout the Mediterranean and control the Adriatic, a fleet was sent to the aid of the Carolingian Emperor Louis II, seizing various territories from the Muslims that they had appropriated in Italy, in the case of Bari, Taranto and Calabria, albeit at the cost of losing most of Sicily.
The trickiest thing was the question of his succession. Given the distrust that Basilio had towards León, which not only did not improve over the years but worsened when he suspected that the scion also assumed his descent from Miguel III and wanted to avenge him, he had named his eldest son Constantine, son of his previous wife, as heir. But an illness took his life and the emperor appointed the minor, Alexander, in his place while he imprisoned Leo and ordered him to be blinded, accusing him of conspiracy, although he finally had to release him due to the public unrest generated by the measure and the pressure he received from the patriarch. Photius. By then the relationship between father and son was broken because the first snatched her lover Zoe Zaoutzaina from the second, marrying her to a minor official.
That was when the deer crossed his path and Leo, whom Basilio accused of having organized that hunt to kill him, did not have to wait long to seize the throne:the thirteen months that his brother reigned before he died, they say how exhausted after a tzykanion match (pole). Alexander was as ephemeral as he was detested and he was accused of every conceivable vice, so when Leo replaced him he had an easy time earning the nickname with which he passed on to posterity:Leo VI the Wise . By the way, one of the first and significant things he did was to bury with great pomp the mortal remains of Michael III in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.