ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the individuation of the unities and with the equipment of the Roman army, which under Emperor Basil II conducted a ferocious war across the present-day territories of the Balkans to reconquer the suzerainty of the empire in the area. When Basil II ascended the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire in 976, at the age of 18, he determined to return to the empire the territories which had been lost to the Bulgarians over the centuries. The Balkan Wars of the Roman Empire against the Comitoupouli, the powerful family who, slowly replacing that of the captive Bulgarian czars, had taken the reins of the remains of the Bulgarian Empire, ruling over a territory corresponding to present-day western Bulgaria, Macedonia and part of Albania, lasted for approximately 40 years.
