The Komnenian restoration describes the military, financial and territorial recovery of the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire under the Komnenian dynasty, from the accession in 1081 of Alexios I Komnenos, to the death in 1180 of Manuel I Komnenos.

The Komnenian restoration is also closely linked to the establishment of the Komnenian imperial army.

The Christian Greek empire opens a dialogue with the Muslim Arab Hamdanids of northern Syria.

The Fatimid governor of Damascus, the Turkish general Manjutakin, had besieged Apamea in 993/994.

Michael Bourtzes, the imperial doux of Antioch, comes forth to relieve the city.

The two armies meet across two fords on the Orontes River near Apamea on September 15, 994.

Manjutakin sends his forces to attack Bourtzes’s Hamdanid allies across one ford while pinning the main imperial force down on the other.

His men succeed in breaking through the Hamdanids, turn around and attack the imperial force in the rear.

The imperial army panics and flees, losing some five thousand men in the process.

This defeat leads to the direct intervention of emperor Basil II, and Bourtzes' dismissal from his post and his replacement by Damian Dalassenos as magistros.

This post is one of the most important military positions in the Empire, as its holder commands the forces arrayed against the Fatimid Caliphate and the semi-autonomous Muslim rulers of Syria.

Basil II aims solely at the extension and consolidation of imperial authority at home and abroad.

The main fields of external conflict are in Syria, Armenia, and Georgia on the eastern front, in the Balkans, and in southern Italy.

He has maintained the imperial position in Syria against aggression stirred up by the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt and on occasion has made forced marches from Constantinople across Asia Minor to relieve Antioch.

By aggression and by diplomacy, he has secured land from Georgia and from Armenia, with the promise of more to come on the death of the Armenian ruler.

Basil launches a lightning campaign against the Muslim Arabs in 995, personally leading an army of forty thousand men (with eighty thousand mules).

Riding through Anatolia in sixteen days, he reaches Aleppo in April 995, forcing the Fatimid army to retreat without giving battle, taking over the Orontes valley, and raiding further south.

The imperial army, after besieging Tripolis unsuccessfully, …

…occupies Tartus, which they refortify and garrison with Armenian troops.

Constantinople’s forces have conquered some areas of Bulgaria; in 995, however, the Arabs invade Asia Minor and Basil is forced to move many of his troops to combat this new threat.

Samuel quickly regains the lost lands and advances south.

Samuel defeats the Greeks in 995 in the battle of Thessalonica, during which Thessaloniki's governor, Gregorios, perishes and his son Ashot is captured.

Elated by this success, …

…the Bulgarians continue south.

They march through Thessaly, overcome the defensive wall at Thermopylae and …

…enter the Peloponnese, devastating everything on their way, and threatening Corinth.