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People: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus
Location: Tongeren Limburg Belgium

The final Rus'-Byzantine War is, in essence, …

Years: 1036 - 1047

The final Rus'-Byzantine War is, in essence, an unsuccessful naval raid against Constantinople in 1043 instigated by Yaroslav I of Kiev and led by his eldest son, Vladimir of Novgorod.

The reasons for the war are disputed, as is its course.

Michael Psellos, an eyewitness of the battle, leaves a hyperbolic account detailing how the invading Kievan Rus' were annihilated by a superior imperial fleet with Greek fire off the Anatolian shore.

(According to the Slavonic chronicles, the Kievan fleet was destroyed by a tempest.)

The East Romans send a squadron of fiurteen ships to pursue the dispersed monoxylae of the Rus'.

They are sunk by the Kievan admiral Ivan Tvorimich, who also manages to rescue Prince Vladimir after the shipwreck.

A six thousand-strong Kievan contingent under the Novgorodan general Vyshata, which does not take part in naval action, is captured and deported to Constantinople.

Eight hundred of the Rus' prisoners are blinded.

Vyshata will be allowed to return to Kiev at the conclusion of the peace treaty three years later.

Under the terms of the peace settlement, Yaroslav's son Vsevolod I is to marry a daughter of Emperor Constantine Monomachus.

Their son will assume his maternal grandfather's name and become known as Vladimir Monomakh.