Most Bulgarian commanders have surrendered by 1018, and only Ivats (Ibatzes), who had retreated with his followers to the royal estate of Pronista, a naturally strong and defensible highland position, continues to resist.

Ivats had in 1015 he defeated an imperial army in the battle of Bitola and stopped the disastrous campaign of Basil II in the heart of the Bulgarian Empire.

After the death of Ivan Vladislav and the surrender of the Empress, the Patriarch and many nobles to Constantinople, he chooses to continue the struggle along the sons of the dead emperor and several other nobles.

His stronghold is the fortress Vrohot in Mount Tomor, modern southeastern Albania.

The fortress is soon besieged by Basil II but the fifty-five-day siege is unsuccessful for attackers.

He is treacherously blinded in 1018 by the imperial strategos Eustathios Daphnomeles, who then addresses the defenders and manages to persuade them of the futility of further resistance, and to lay down their arms and seek the emperor's pardon.