of bodyguards, but he was brought at bay at Konstantinou Bounos (probably modern Yildiz Dagı). In the ensuing engagement, he was wounded by Poulades, a Byzantine soldier who had been formerly a captive of the Paulicians, and fell from his horse. He was then captured and beheaded by the advancing Byzantines, and his head was sent to Emperor Basil in Constantinople. Aftermath The defeat at Bathys Ryax signalled the end of the Paulicians as a military power and a threat to Byzantium. Basil followed this success by a series of campaigns in the East against the Paulician strongholds and the Arab emirates. Tephrike itself was taken in 878 and razed to the ground. The remaining Paulicians were resettled in the Balkans, while a large contingent was shipped off to Southern Italy to fight for the Empire under Nikephoros Phokas the Elder. Questions of chronology The chronology and sequence of events regarding the battle and the fall of the Paulician state is unclear, since the Byzantine sources are contradictory: a number of scholars place the battle in 872, others in 878, in both cases either before or after the capture and razing of Tephrike itself by the Byzantines. Thus Alexander Vasiliev proposed a first victorious battle for the Byzantines, followed by the sack of Tephrike and the final Paulician defeat at Bathys Ryax, all in 872. Most recent historians place the battle before the sack of the city, but disagree in the dates of the two events. Some, like Nina Garsoïan or John Haldon, place both events in 878; the French Byzantinist Paul Lemerle, followed by other scholars like Mark Whittow and Warren Treadgold, placed the battle in 872 and the final subjugation of Tephrike years later, in 878 (Treadgold in 879). References Sources Bathys Ryax Bathys Ryax Bathys Ryax History of Sivas Province Paulicianism 872 878 870s in the Byzantine Empire