It was around this time that Bulgarian forces once again began to raid into Byzantine Greece. Basil, however, saw this as an opportunity: by crushing the Bulgarian forces, he could legitimize his reign at home while diminishing the distinguished military record of the Phokades carried on by Bardas Phokas in the east, as this was his main catalyst of support, he himself being a poor strategist. He departed for the western front in 986 and reached Serdica by summer. He besieged the city for twenty days before becoming worried on account of circulating rumors that Melissenos was planning a coup in the capital. On August 16, however, he was ambushed by the Bulgarian tsar Samuel's forces at the Gates of Trajan. His forces were scattered, and Basil was disgraced by the defeat. Not only was Samuil able to reconquer much of the former Bulgarian Empire, as it had been before the conquests of John I Tzimiskes, but support for Basil's reign fragmented both in Constantinople and in the east. Worse yet, news of the disastrous defeat would reach as far as Baghdad, where the former rebel Bardas Skleros had been granted asylum by the ruling Buyid dynasty.