Nikephoros I

Nikephoros I (c. 750–811) was Byzantine emperor from 802 to 811. As finance minister under Empress Irene, he deposed her in 802 and seized the throne. He reorganised imperial finances and military settlement, moving soldiers and peasants from Asia Minor to the Balkans, and crowned his son Staurakios co-emperor in 803.

His strict financial discipline brought him hostility among his subjects. He clashed with Charlemagne over Venice and with the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, and was killed in 811 while invading Bulgaria, in the disaster of the Battle of Pliska.