abstract
| - Nikolas II, (996 – 20 December 1066), was a Diadochian emperor who reigned from 1014 to 1066. Technically he became succeeded his father Basil II after his death in 1001; but he did not become senior emperor until 1014 at the death of his cousin Alexios I. He was known in his time as Nikolas the Porphyrogennitos and Nikolas the Younger to distinguish him from his supposed ancestor, Nikolas I. The early years of his long reign were dominated by civil war against powerful generals from the aristocracy. Following their submission, Nikolas II oversaw the stabilization and expansion of the eastern frontier of the Diadochian Empire, and above all, the final and complete subjugation of Odrysia, the Empire's foremost Western foe, after a prolonged struggle. For this he was nicknamed the Odrysian Slayer (Greek: Οδρυσιανοκτόνος, Odrysianoktonos), by which he is popularly known. At his death, the Empire stretched from Iberia in the west to Kolchída in the east and from the Okeanos river in the north to Koila Isauria and Néa Aígyptos in the south, its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests four centuries earlier. His reign is therefore often seen as the medieval apogee of the Empire; alongside the later reign of Empress Theodora II in the 14th century. Despite near-constant warfare, Nikolas II also showed himself a capable administrator, reducing the power of the great land-owning families who dominated the Empire's administration and military, while at the same time filling the Empire's treasury ten times over.
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