The Byzantine historian Scylitzes describes the blinding of 15,000 captured Bulgarian soldiers by Basil II, the death of Samuil and the conquest of all Bulgaria
llth-12th c.
/part one/
Every year the Emperor continued to invade Bulgaria and devasted and laid waste everything on his way. Samuil could not put up opposition in the en field, nor could he come out in an open battle against the Emperor, and he suffered defeats on all sides and began to lose his strength. For this reason he decided to dig trenches and block the Emperor's road to Bulgaria ... The Emperor was already losing hope of getting through when Nicephorus Xiphias, pointed at that time by him as strategus of Philippopolis, persuaded him to remain there and to keep up his constant assaults on the barrier, saying that he would go to see whether he could not do something advantageous and salutary. And so, having taken his soldiers… all of a sudden, with cries and noise, he appeared on high ground in the rear of the Bulgarians. Terrified by his sudden appearance, they fled. The Emperor destroyed the abandoned palisade and began to pursue them. Many were slain and many more were captured. Samuil as barely saved from death by his son, who valiantly warded off the attackers, е put him on a horse and led him to the fortress called Prilep. And the Emperor blinded the captive Bulgarians, about 15,000 so they say, ordering each group of one hundred to be led by a soldier with one eye, and thus sent them to Samuil. When the latter saw them coming in rows of equal numbers he mid not stand this suffering courageously and in silence, but became unwell, fainted and fell to the ground. Those present tried to restore his breathing with water and perfumes and succeeded in bringing him round a little. When he had covered consciousness, he asked for cold water, but after taking a drink, he suffered a heart attack, and two days later he died. His son Gavril, called also Roman, who surpassed his father in might and force but was far inferior to him in wisdom and reason, took power over the Bulgarians. He was Samuil's son by a slave girl from Larissa. He began to rule on September 15, indiction 13; /1014/. A year had not passed before he was murdered while out hunting by Aaron's son, Ivan Vladislav, whom he had rescued from death when he was about to perish.
Before these occurrences, at the time when Theophylactus Botaniates was sent as governor of Thessalonica, following Arianites, David Nestoritsa, as Bulgarian noble, was sent by Samuil with a large army against Thessalonica. Theophylactus met them with his son Michael, engaged in battle against them and utterly defeated them. He took much booty and many prisoners and brought them to the Emperor, who was besieging the barrier at the Gorge of Kleidion.1 Passing through the barrier, as we have already said, the Emperor advanced to Stroumitsa and captured the fortress, called Matzukion, situated near Stroumitsa. He also sent the Thessalonica duke Theophylactus Botaniates with his troops, ordering him to cross the hills at Stroumitsa, so as to burn the palisades on the roads to them and open a convenient road for him to Thessalonica. He set out, and the Bulgarians guarding these places let him pass everywhere unimpeded along the road. But when he was preparing to return to the Emperor after having fulfilled his orders, he fell into ambushes set up for this purpose and waiting in a long and narrow pass. When he entered it, sur-rounded from all sides and showered from above with stones and arrows, he fell dead without anyone being able to help him and without being able to make use of his hands, owing to the narrow and impassable place. A large part of the army perished with him. When this was reported to the Emperor, he was filled with great sorrow. It was because of this that he did not dare advance but turned back and arrived in Zagoria where the extremely strong fortress of Melnik stood, built on a rock and encircled on all sides by steep and very deep precipices. The Bulgarians from the area had gathered there and were not at all interested in the Byzantines. The Emperor sent to them one of his menservants, a eunuch named Sergius, an intelligent and eloquent man, to find out what their mood was. Once there, he succeeded by dint of much persuasion in con-vincing these people to lay down their arms and to surrender, together with the fortress, to the Emperor. The Emperor received them and conferred honours upon them, and leaving a sufficient garrison in the fortress, he returned to Mosynopolis.2 While he was there, they informed him also of Samuil's death on October 24. The Emperor immediately left Mosynopolis and went down towards Thessalonica, and from there he went to Pelagonia, without devastating the lands on his way, and merely burning Gavril's palaces in Buteli.3 Having sent troops, he captured the fortresses of Prilep and Stip. From there he reached the river called Cherna, which he crossed on rafts and inflated skins and returned to Voden , whence on January 9 /1015/ he went to Thessalonica.

In the early spring the Emperor again returned to Bulgaria and set out for the fortress of Voden, because its inhabitants, betraying their loyalty to the Emperor, had taken up arms against the Byzantines. Moreover, he strongly besieged the town and compelled them to surrender, after receiving guarantees, lain deported them to Voleron, and in the middle of the pass he erected the fortresses, one of which he named Kardia, and the other Saint Elijah, plumed to Thessalonica. There, through a Byzantine who had lost one hand, Roman Gavril sent a promise of submission and obedience.