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Nicephorus I usurped rule from Irene, the one and only Empress of the Empire. Nicephorus had been a kind of finance minister to Irene, and a fellow iconophile (he wasn't into prohibiting icons... a big controversy of the time).
Nicephorus wound up going to battle with his son and heir, pictured on the reverse of the coin (Stauricius), against Krum, Khan of Bulgaria, who was harassing his northern frontiers and had just conquered Serdica (Sofia).
In 811 Nikephoros invaded Bulgaria, defeated Krum twice, and sacked the Bulgarian capital Pliska. The Chronicle of 12th-century patriarch of the Syrian Jacobites, Michael the Syrian, describes the brutalities and atrocities of Nikephoros: "Nikephoros, emperor of the Byzantine empire, walked into the Bulgarians' land: he was victorious and killed great number of them. He reached their capital, seized it and devastated it. His savagery went to the point that he ordered to bring their small children, got them tied down on earth and made thresh grain stones to smash them." During Nikephoros' retreat, the imperial army was ambushed and destroyed in Varbishki mountain passes on July 26 by Krum. Nikephoros was captured during the battle and sent to Pliska, where Krum ordered his decapitation. Krum is said to have made a drinking-cup of Nikephoros' skull.