n (976-1014), who conquered the greater part of the
Peninsula, and ruled from the Danube to the Morea. After a series of
campaigns this redoubtable warrior was defeated at Belasitza by the emperor
Basil II., surnamed Bulgaroktonos, who put out the eyes of 15,000 prisoners
taken in the fight, and sent them into the camp of his adversary. The
Bulgarian tsar was so overpowered by the spectacle that he died of grief. A
few years later his dynasty finally disappeared, and for more than a
century and a half (1018-1186) the Bulgarian race remained subject to the
Byzantine emperors.

_The Second Empire._--In 1186, after a general insurrection of Vlachs and
Bulgars under the brothers Ivan and Peter Asen of Trnovo, who claimed
descent from the dynasty of the Shishmanovtzi, the nation recovered its
independence, and Ivan Asen assumed the title of "Tsar of the Bulgars and
Greeks." The seat of the second, or "Bulgaro-Vlach" empire was at Trnovo,
which the Bulgarians regard as the historic capital of their race. Kaloyan,
the third of the Asen monarchs, extended his dominions to Belgrade, Nish
and Skopie (Uskub); he acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the pope,
and received the royal crown from a papal legate. The greatest of all
Bulgarian rulers was Ivan Asen II. (1218-1241), a man of humane and
enlightened character. After a series of victorious campaigns he
established his sway over Albania, Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace, and
governed his wide dominions with justice, wisdom and moderation. In his
time the nation attained a prosperity hitherto unknown: commerce, the arts
and literature flourished; Trnovo, the capital, was enlarged and
embellished; and great numbers of churches and monasteries were founded or
endowed. The dynasty of the Asens became extinct in 1257, and a period of
decadence began. Two other dynasties, both of Kuman origin, followed--the
Terterovtzi, who ruled at Trnovo, and the Shishmanovtzi, who founded an
independent state at Vidin, but afterwards reigned in the national capital.
Eventually, on the 28th June 1330, a day commemorated with sorrow in
Bulgaria, Tsar Michael Shishman was defeated and slain by the Servians,
under Stephen Urosh III., at the battle of Velbuzhd (Kiustendil). Bulgaria,
though still retaining its native rulers, now became subject to Servia, and
formed part of the short-lived empire of Stephen Dushan (1331-1355). The
Servian hegemony vanished after the death of Dushan, and the Christian
rac