Nikephoros I or Nicephorus I (; 750 – 26 July 811) was Byzantine emperor from 802 to 811. Having served Empress Irene as genikos logothetēs, he subsequently ousted her from power and took the throne himself. In reference to his career before becoming emperor, he is sometimes surnamed "the Logothete" (ὁ Λογοθέτης) and "Genikos" or "Genicus" (ὁ Γενικός). Nikephoros pursued wars against the Arabs and Bulgarians, with mixed results; while invading Bulgaria he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Pliska. Background Sources outside the Byzantine context, including Michael the Syrian, al-Tabari, and Mas'udi, preserve the tradition that Nikephoros was of Ghassanid Arab origin. al-Tabari claims that he derived this information from Byzantine sources, but no surviving Byzantine chronicle makes explicit mention of the emperor's ethnic background. The modern scholar Paul Julius Alexander suggests that al-Tabari did transmit information present in Byzantine writings; as an example he cites an apocalyptic text, preserved in a “hopelessly corrupt” copy, in which the emperor is said to be "from the race of Gopsin". Reign A patrician from Seleucia Sidera, Nikephoros was appointed finance minister (logothetēs tou genikou) by the Empress Irene. He figured prominently in a courtiers' power struggle which eventually dethroned Irene and sent her into exile. With the support of his co-conspirators, Nikephoros was installed as the new emperor on 31 October 802. He crowned his son Staurakios co-emperor in 803. Nikephoros embarked on a general reorganization of the Roman Empire and a strengthening of its frontiers. He created new themes in the Balkans, populating them with Greeks resettled from Anatolia. Needing large sums to increase his military forces, he managed the empire's finances with a rigor that earned the hostility of his subjects. According to two later chronicles, the 10th-century Theophanes Continuatus and the 13th-century Synopsis Chronike, the revolt of the general Bardanes Tourkos in 803 may have been prompted by displeasure over Nikephoros' handling of army pay. Nikephoros secretly negotiated with two of Bardanes' key supporters, the generals Leo and Michael, who convinced the rebel army to disperse. Bardanes was captured, blinded, and relegated to a monastery. A conspiracy headed by the patrician Arsaber had a similar result. Tax imposts, and other attempts to exercise imperial control upon the church, alienated Nikephoros from the clergy. Although he appointed an iconodule, also named Nikephoros, as patriarch, Emperor Nikephoros was portrayed as a villain by ecclesiastical historians like Theophanes the