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Rh the Drunkard, led an army in person against the combined Saracens and Paulicians. He was defeated at Samosata and compelled to flee for his life. More than a hundred tribunes were taken prisoners, and those who could not ransom themselves were put to torture. Carbeas was succeeded in the leadership of these fierce, fighting Paulicians by Chrysocheir, who, still in alliance with the Saracens, carried the war into the heart of Asia Minor, as far as the western coast and almost up to Constantinople itself, pillaging Ancyra and Ephesus, Nicæa and Nicomedia. At Ephesus the invaders stabled their horses in the cathedral, and showed the utmost contempt for the pictures and relics, of which they regarded it as the idol temple. The Emperor Basil was compelled to sue for peace and to offer a heavy bribe to buy them off. But Chrysocheir scornfully refused his terms and would be satisfied with nothing less than the emperor's retirement to the West and surrender of the whole of the Eastern Empire. Basil had no alternative but to fight. He collected all the available forces of the empire and precipitated them on the rebels. Chrysocheir was taken by surprise and killed while in retreat. Thephrike was deserted by the insurgents, entered by the imperial troops, and laid waste ( 871). It was a complete and final victory for Basil, and it put an end to any further danger of serious invasion. But many of the rebels had escaped to the mountains. There they continued their independence in alliance with the Saracens, and from time to time joined in border raids.

Meanwhile there was another body of Paulicians in Thrace, the descendants and converts of some whom Constantine Copronicus had transported to this part of Europe. These people conformed outwardly with the orthodox Church, and did not attempt any revolt on their own account; but they were credited with sending aid to their more warlike brethren, to whom they stood in the