Nicephorus II of Byzantium (912-10 December 969) was the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 963 to 969, succeeding Romanus II of Byzantium and preceding John I of Byzantium.
Biography[]
Nicephorus was born in 912 to the House of Phokas, a dynasty of Orthodox Christian Greeks. Nicephorus became a military governor of the Byzantine Empire, and when Emperor Romanus II of Byzantium became emperor in 959, Nicephorus took command of the Byzantine eastern army. In 960, with 308 ships and 77,000 troops, he conquered the Emirate of Crete and in 963 he captured Aleppo from the Saracens. In 963, Romanus died at 26 due to his heavy drinking and his sexual excesses, and Nicephorus marched on Constantinople with an army and had himself proclaimed emperor. Nicephorus reigned for six years, and his reign ended when his nephew John Tzimakes sent assassins dressed as women to decapitate him, as he plotted with Nicephorus' second wife (and wife of the late Romanus II) Theophano to kill him. His head was paraded on a spike and his body thrown from a window, and John became the new emperor.