Battle of the Gates of Trajan 986
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 986 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Bulgaria | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 42.3561, 23.9183 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of the Gates of Trajan (Bulgarian: Битка край Траянови врати, Medieval Greek: Μάχη στις Πύλες του Τραϊανού) was a battle between Byzantine and Bulgarian forces in the year 986.
It took place in the pass of the same name, modern Trayanovi Vrata, in Sofia Province, Bulgaria. It was the largest defeat of the Byzantines under Emperor Basil II. After the unsuccessful siege of Sofia he retreated to Thrace, but was surrounded by the Bulgarian army under the command of Samuel in the Sredna Gora mountains. The Byzantine army was annihilated and Basil himself barely escaped.
Fifteen years after the fall and re-capture of the Bulgarian capital of Preslav, the victory at the Gates of Trajan extended the Bulgarian successes achieved since 976. Later on Tsar Samuel moved the capital from Preslav in the northeast to Ohrid in the southwest. The memory of the great victory over Basil II was preserved thirty years later in the Bitola inscription of Ivan Vladislav (1015–1018), the son of Aron.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Gates of Trajan (revision 1370599674), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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