Romanos IV Diogenes was released after 3 September 1071.He wrote to his
wife, the empress Eudocia, informing her of what had happened. While
the letter was still on its way, a coup d’´etat took place in Constantinople. In
October 1071 Michael VII Doukas (1071–8) was proclaimed emperor; the
son of Constantine X (1059–67),Michael had the support of his uncle, the
caesar John. Eudocia was compelled by them to become a nun. Civil war
became inevitable (see above, p. 609).
Romanos IV, who enjoyed support in eastern Anatolia, was defeated
twice: the first time near Amaseia, and then in Cilicia. He was captured
and so cruelly blinded on 29 June 1072 that he died a few weeks later. One
of Romanos’ commanders, Philaretos Brachamios, refused to recognise
Michael VII and sought to create a polity of his own, centred on Mshar, and
later onGermanikeia.MeanwhileRomanos’ death nullified the peace treaty
struck between him and Alp Arslan, who himself perished in Transoxiana
shortly afterwards. All our sources agree that it was Romanos’ death which
gave the Turks the opportunity to invade Byzantine territories and, more
importantly, to remain permanently in Anatolia.13
In 1073 Michael VII sent Isaac Komnenos against the Turks; Isaac was
the new domestic of the Schools of the East, and elder brother of the future
emperor AlexiosKomnenos. Their expedition ended in disaster; thewestern
mercenaries under the command of Russell Balliol rebelled and abandoned
the Byzantine army. Meanwhile Isaac was defeated and taken captive by
the Turks near Caesarea; Alexios managed to escape and get as far as Ankara
(Ankyra), where he was rejoined by Isaac, who had been ransomed by the
Byzantine cities. However, Ankara itself was by no means secure, as the
Turks were ravaging the surrounding countryside. Near Nikomedeia the
young Komnenoi and their small detachment were attacked by a larger
group of some 200 Turks. The brothers barely escaped to Constantinople.
This episode vividly illustrates conditions in Asia Minor two years after
the battle of Manzikert: the countryside lay open to the Turks, while the
fortified towns were still in Byzantine hands. Yet even without a strong field
army, the Byzantine defence system disintegrated only slowly.
The Turks managed to make their first, quite small, territorial acquisitions
on Byzantine soil only after 1075. The territories conquered were the
Pontos and Bithynia, and the loss was as a result of Russell Balliol’s revolt
in 1073–5. After breaking away from Isaac Komnenos’ army, Russell’s own
detachment of 400 men went to Melitene, where he repulsed the Turkish
hordes, then turned to Sebasteia and managed to occupy the theme of the
Armeniakoi from the autumn of 1073 onwards. The small and ineffectual
Byzantine army under the command of the caesar John Doukas could do
nothing to stop him, and Russell reached Chrysopolis in 1074 with an army
by then numbering 3,000. Under these circumstances,Michael VII had no
choice but to ask the Turks for help. In June 1074 he sent an embassy to
the Seljuq sultan Malik Shah (1073–92)14 but, as time was pressing, the
emperor also sought help from the leader of a roving Oghuz band nearby,
the tribe known as the d¨oger. This band was led by Artuq, founder of the
Artuqid dynasty which later based itself in Diyar Bakr (Amida). Artuq
heeded the emperor’s plea, and in a battle at Mount Sophon some time in
the second part of 1074 he defeated and took prisoner both John Doukas
and Russell Balliol. Michael VII ransomed the caesar John, while Russell
was redeemed by his wife who had survived the battle in the fortress of
Metabole nearby. Then Artuq left Asia Minor, while Russell withdrew to
the theme of Armeniakoi.
According to Michael Attaleiates, at this moment
the emperor, . . . enraged against him [Russell], preferred that the Turks should
occupy and rule the land of theRomans, rather than that this Latin should withdraw
to the previous place [the theme of Armeniakoi].15
Indeed, the young Alexios Komnenos is said to have remarked to Tutaq,
commander-in-chief of the Seljuq army:
Your sultan and my emperor are mutual friends. However, this barbarian, Russell,
raises his hands against them and he has become the most terrible enemy of both.
On the one hand, he makes incursions and little by little subdues some parts of
the [land of the] Romans; on the other, he seizes [lands] in Persia, which might
otherwise have remained Persia’s.16
Both statements refer to the situation in Anatolia in the second half of 1075,
and indicate that in accordance with the treaty of June 1074 – whereby
Michael VII and Malik Shah became ‘friends’ – the Byzantines recognised
the Seljuqs’ acquisitions east of the Armeniakoi theme, in return for their
assistance against Russell.
Important details of how the Byzantines employed the Turks against
Russell Balliol are to be found in the Georgian Royal Annals, which also
describe howtheTurkish advance into the Pontos was contained withGeorgian
help. In 1074Gregory Pakourianos left his post of commander-in-chief
(zorvari) of the imperial forces in the east17 and returned to Constantinople.
Gregory gave all the lands under his control (Theodosioupolis, Olti, Kars,
Vanand, Karnipori18 and a portion of Tao) to King George II (1072–89)
of Georgia. At first, this tactical withdrawal worked well enough: Georgian
garrisons were established in the former Byzantine strongholds and Georgian
troops cleared the territory of the Turkish war bands in 1075. Although
the Turks soon occupied Theodosioupolis, Olti and then Kars, some time
passed before they subdued the territory completely. They only made their
first full-scale invasion into Georgia in 1080.19
Byzantine policy was realistic and flexible. The withdrawal of Gregory
Pakourianos’ army was caused byByzantium’s desperate need for troops during
Russell’s revolt and by a fresh influx of Turks into the Pontos in 1073–5.
With Russell at their rear, the Byzantines had little hope of standing up
to the Turks. It was Georgian military support that restricted the Turks’
migration into the Byzantine Pontic provinces in 1075, when Russell’s revolt
was suppressed with Turkish help.
The Byzantine eastern border zone with its formidable fortifications and
huge cities did not collapse as soon as the Turks occupied Theodosioupolis.
Sebasteia and its environs, or at least a portion of Sennacherim-John
Artsruni’s possessions, may have remained in the hands of his sons Atom
and Abusahl, who were still alive as late as 1079–80. Maria, the daughter
of Gagik-Abas II (1029–64) of Kars, held her father’s possessions in
Tzamandos in 1077. The Byzantines themselves stood their ground in the
strategically important region of Choma, Polybotos and Kedrea as late as
1081.20 We also read in an Armenian colophon that in 1079 Ch‘ortowanel
Mamikonean, ‘the great prince of Taron and all the lands of the Armenians’,
gave with the consent of the emperor his ancestral village of Berdak
to the monastery (or church) of the Holy Apostles.21 If this Berdak can
be identified as Sewuk Berdak (Maurokastron) on the headwaters of the
Araxes, the colophon suggests that an Armenian prince recognising imperial
authority retained territory south of Theodosioupolis at the end of the
1070s.
The Turks in the Pontos – hemmed in by Byzantine fortresses to the
north, west and south, and by the Georgians to their east – did not pose
much of a threat to Byzantine power in Asia Minor. Far more dangerous
was another invasion led by Suleiman ibn Qutlumush (1081–6) from Syria
in 1074–5.22 According to Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, Suleiman ‘was reported to
have come from the Turkmen of [the confederation of] al-Nawakiyya who
dwelt in Syria’.23 Already in 1070, some of the al-Nawakiyya had gone to
Asia Minor, under the leadership of Arisghi (see above, p. 702), where first
Romanos IV and then Michael VII settled them in western Anatolia; but
most made for Syria, which they occupied in 1071–2.
In 1073, northern Syria was caught up in the struggle between the Fatimid
caliphate of al-Mustansir (1036–94) and Atsiz, a kinsman or at least a fellow
tribesman of Artuq. Atsiz was commander of the largest Turkish band that
had been ravaging Syria from 1064 onwards; the al-Nawakiyya Turkmen
were another such band. The ensuing chaos led masses of Turks to swarm
into Syria, many of them antagonistic not only to the Fatimids but also to
the Seljuq sultan Malik Shah. Despite being themselves of the Seljuq clan,
Suleiman ibn Qutlumush and his brother Mansur/Masud24 were among
thoseTurks who – like the al-Nawakiyya –were hostile to the ruling dynasty
of the Grand Seljuqs. Their father Qutlumush, the invader of Vaspurakan
in 1045, had rebelled against his cousin Alp Arslan and died in battle near
Rayy sometime before 23 January 1064.
Although Atsiz lacked the illustrious pedigree of Suleiman, with Malik
Shah’s support he grew from strength to strength. Not without reason he
became suspicious of the sons of Qutlumush, and open struggle between
them ended in victory for Atsiz near Tiberias in 1075. Suleiman andMansur
were then driven off from Antioch by the doux Isaac Komnenos and forced
to leave Syria for Asia Minor. Suleiman’s horde advanced quickly along
the Byzantine military road, taking Ikonion and the fortress of Kabala en
route.25 His arrival at Nicaea in the summer or autumn of 1075 transformed
the situation in Asia Minor to the Turks’ advantage. According
to Attaleiates, the Turkish incursions spread as far as the Bosporus at this
time.26
Suleiman’s chance came in October 1077, when Nikephoros
Botaneiates – later Emperor Nikephoros III (1078–81) – began his rebellion
against Michael VII (see above, p. 610). Arisghi and his al-Nawakiyya
Turks at once supported Nikephoros in Phrygia. Suleiman, in command of
another grouping of the al-Nawakiyya near Kotyaeion, followed suit at the
beginning of 1078.He recognised the new emperor as his suzerain and even
helped Nikephoros Botaneiates defeat the rebellion of Nikephoros Bryennios
in the spring of 1078. But the main problem for the new emperor was
Suleiman’s proximity to the Bosporus; his horde roamed the fertile lands
of Bithynia, raiding them relentlessly. Neither the expedition of the amir
Bursuq, whom Malik Shah had sent in pursuit of Suleiman in 1078, nor
the attempts of Nikephoros III himself to restrict his ‘allies’ could stop the
devastating raids. Although, with the exception of Ikonion, the Turks had
yet to take any Byzantine cities, they dominated the heart of western Asia
Minor. By 1078 Philaretos Brachamios had managed to become master of
Edessa, Melitene and Antioch and to halt the influx of Turks from Syria.
He also recognised Nikephoros III as his emperor. But even this could not
tip the balance in favour of the Byzantines.27
World History
