But the Emperor's determination remained firm. This was, he knew, his only chance of freeing his Empire once and for all from the Turkish menace. Alp Arslan was only a few miles away with his full army; he himself, despite the disaster of Khelat, still commanded a force which, even if not quite its equal in size, was certainly larger than he was ever likely to muster again. Finally, if he were to return to Constantinople without having so much as engaged the Seljuks on the field, what chance would he have of keeping his throne - or indeed his life - against the intrigues of the Ducas? He dismissed the embassy with the minimum o
f courtesy and prepared for battl
e.
It is a curious and somehow frustrating fact that neither the date nor the location of one of the most decisive battles of the world can be universally agreed. Muslim historians are unanimous that it took place on a Friday, and the month was indubitably August; but scholars still argue whether it was fought on the 5 th, 12th, 19th or 26th. Most European historians seem to have opted for the 19th, but in doing so they have ignored an important clue: the fact that according to Michael Attaleiates - who was there - the secon
d or third night before the battl
e was moonless
(aselenos).
Now in August 1071 the full moon was on the 13th (Julian calendar), which means that the nights would still have been bright on the 16th and 17th; they would have been far darker on the 23 rd and 24th, when the moon would have been visible only as a thin crescent, an hour or two before dawn. Leaving aside the possibility that Attaleiates simply meant that the sky was overcast - something extremely improbable in that place and season — we cannot but conclude that it was
1
But this raises another question: if the Scljuks had indeed defeated the Byzantines in pitched battle at Khelat, would the Sultan not have been rather more optimistic? The more one thinks about it, the more one comes to suspect that that battle never took place.
on Friday, 26 August that the fate
of the Byzantine Empire was settl
ed.
1
As to the location, we know that the battle was fought on fairly level steppe, within a mile or two of the fortress of Manzikert (now marked by the modern Turkish town of Malazgirt). The chronicler Nicephorus Bryennius, grandson and namesake of Romanus's general and another valuable source, adds that in the closing stages th
e Byzantines ran into ambushes,
which suggests - since steppes by their very nature afford few hiding-places - that there must also have been rougher, hillier country close by. Now Armenia is a mountainous country, but there is indeed just such a steppe, some three or four miles across, extending for perhaps ten miles on a south-west-north-east axis immediately to the south and east of the town. Beyond it a line of foothills, cut through with gullies and ravines — ideal ambush country - soon gives way once more to the mountains. Somewhere in those forty-odd square miles the two armies drew up opposite each other, early
that Friday afternoon, and battl
e was joined.
Or was it? The fact of the matter is that Manzikert, for all its historical significance, was until its very final stages hardly a battle at all. Romanus had formed up his army according to the traditional army manuals, in one long line several ranks deep, with the cavalry on the flanks. He himself took the centre, with Bryennius on
the left and, on the right, a C
appadocian general named Alyattes. Behind was a substantial rearguard composed, we are told, of the 'levies of the nobility' - in fact the private armies of the great landowners - under the command, somewhat surprisingly, of Andronicus Ducas, son of Caesar John Ducas and nephew of the late Emperor. This y
oung man seems to have made littl
e secret of his contempt for Romanus, and the wonder is that the latter should have ever allowed him to participate in the campaign at all. Presumably he thought it safer to have him under his eye as a potential hostage rather than to leave him to stir up trouble in Constantinople; if so, it was the gravest mistake of his life.
All through the afternoon the imperial army advanced across the steppe, but instead of coming forward to meet them the Seljuks steadily withdrew in a wide crescent, leaving the initiative to their mounted archers who galloped up and down on the Byzantine flanks, showering
1
For this information, as for much else in this chapter, I am indebted to the late Alfred Friendly, whose book
Th
e
Dreadful Day: The Battle of Manzikert,
has proved invaluable.
them with arrows. The infuriated cavalry would then break line and pursue them into the foothills - straight, it need hardly be said, into the carefully prepared ambushes; but for the increasingly frustrated Emperor in the centre there remained, where the enemy should have been, an empty void. On and on he rode, apparendy convinced that if he continued as far as the mountains he could somehow force his antagonists to turn and fight; then, suddenly, he noticed that the sun was fast declining and that he had left his camp virtually undefended. There was no point in further pursuit - if, indeed, he was actually pursuing anyone. He ordered the imperial standards to be reversed - the recognized signal for turning back - and wheeled his horse.
This was the moment for which Alp Arslan had been waiting. From his observation post in the hills above he had watched Romanus's every move; now and now only, he gave the order for the attack. As his men poured down on to the steppe the Byzantine line broke in confusion; some of the mercenary units, seeing the reversed standards and not understanding their true significance, assumed that the Emperor had been killed and took to their heels. Meanwhile the Seljuks cut across immediately behind the broken line, separating it from the rearguard. At this point that rearguard should have justified its existence by moving forward, squeezing the enemy between it and the forward line and preventing its escape. Instead, Andronicus Ducas deliberately spread the word among his troops that the E
mperor was defeated and the battl
e lost. He and they thereupon fled from the field and, as the panic spread, more and more contingents followed them. Only the troops on the left wing, seeing the Emperor in difficulties, rode to his rescue; but the Seljuks bore down upon them swiftly from the rear and they too had to flee.
Romanus stood his ground, his personal guard around him, calling in vain on his troops to rally. But the chaos and confusion were too great. As Attaleiates describes it:
Outside the camp all wer
e in flight, shouting incoherentl
y and riding about in disorder; no one could say what was happening. Some maintained that the Emperor was still fighting with what was left of his army, and that the barbarians had been put to flight. Others claimed that he had been killed or captured. Everyone had something different to report
...
It was like an earthquake: the shouting, the sweat, the swift rushes of fear, the clouds of dust, and not least the hordes of Turks riding all around us. Depending on his speed, resolution and strength, each man sought safety in flight. The enemy followed in pursuit, killing some, capturing others and
trampling yet others under their horses' hooves. It was a tragic sight, beyond any mourning or lamentin
g. What indeed could be more piti
able than to see the entire imperial army in flight, defeated and pursued by cruel and inhuman barbarians; the Emperor defenceless and surrounded by more of the same; the imperial tents, symbols of military might and sovereignty, taken over by men of such a kind; the whole Roman state overturned - and knowing that the Empire itself was on the verge of collapse?
Who survived? Effectively, those who took flight in time. We cannot blame the Armenians for doing so; they had little love at the best of times for the Greeks, who had conquered their country and were even now persecuting their families for the faith that they had always upheld. To the mercenaries we need feel less sympathetic; admittedly they had no emotional loyalty to the Empire, and they understandably resented the Emperor's discrimination against them, together with his unconcealed preference for his native troops. But they were under contract, their wages had been paid, and - though their conduct was probably no worse than that of other soldiers of fortune the world over - they might have shown a little more spirit than in fact they did. The only real villains were the 'levies of the nobility' who formed the rearguard, and their commander Andronicus Ducas. Their shameful flight was probably due to treachery rather than cowardice, and was not a jot the more excusable for that.
There was another survivor too: Romanus Diogenes himself. Left almost alone, he had refused to flee; he fought like a lion to the end. Only when his horse was killed under him and a wound in his hand made it no longer possible for him to hold his sword did he allow himself to be taken prisoner. His captors must have known who he was, but they gave him no special treatment. All night he lay among the wounded and dying. Only the following morning was he brought before the Sultan, dressed as a common soldier, and in chains.
Few chroniclers of the period, Greek or Islamic, have been able to resist giving an account of the interview that took place between the victorious Sultan and the defeated Emperor on the morning after
the battl
e. What is surprising, however, is not the number of these accounts but their similarity. At first, we are told, Alp Arslan refused to believe that the exhausted captive who was flung at his feet was indeed the Emperor of the Romans; only when he had been formally identified by former Turkish envoys and by his fellow-prisoner Basilacius did the Sultan rise from his throne and, ordering Romanus to kiss the ground before him, plant his foot on his victim's neck.
It was a symbolic gesture, nothing more. He then immediately helped Romanus to his feet, bade him sit down at his side and assured him that he would be treated with all the respect due to his rank. For the next week the Emperor remained a guest in the Turkish camp, eating at the Sultan's table; never once did Alp Arslan show him anything but friendliness and courtesy - although he frequently condemned the faithlessness of those who had deserted him in his hour of need and, we are told, occasionally pe
rmitted himself a few gende criti
cisms of Byzantine generalship. All this was, of course, in the highest tradition of Islamic chivalry; we are inevitably reminded of the similar stories told of Saladin a century later. But it was also sound policy on the part of the Sultan: how much better, after all, that Romanus should return safely to Constantinople and resume the throne than that it should be taken over by some inexperienced and headstrong young man of whom he would know nothing and who would think only of revenge.
Considering the circumstances, the peace terms were both merciful and moderate. The Sultan demanded no extensive territories - not even Armenia, to which he believed that he possessed at least as much right as did the Empire. All he asked was the surrender of Manzikert, Antioch, Edessa and Hieropolis, together with one of the Emperor's daughters as a bride for one of his own sons. There remained the question of a ransom. Alp Arslan first suggested that 10 million gold pieces might be appropriate; but when Romanus objected that since the fitting out of his great expedition the imperial treasury simply did not possess such a sum, the Sultan willingly reduced his demand to a million and a half, with a further 360,000 in annual tribute. He also took the point that the Emperor should return to Constantinople at the earliest possible moment; there was otherwise a very real danger that he might be dethroned in his absence, in which case his successor would be highly unlikely to recognize the validity of the agreement that had just been made. It was thus only a week after the battle that Romanus set out on his homeward journey; Alp Arslan rode with him on the first stage, and for the remainder granted him an escort of two Emirs and a hundred Mamelukes. He had left his capital as an Emperor; as an Emperor he would return.
Or so, at least, he hoped. His feelings were not however shared in Constantinople, where the news of the defeat had come as the second
shattering blow in this most catastrophic of years. The previous April -just a month after Romanus had left for the East - the Normans under Robert Guiscard had captured Bari. Since the days of Justinian Bari had been capital of Byzantine Apulia and headquarters of the imperial army: the largest, wealthiest and best defended of all the Greek dues of t
he peninsula. By the ti
me the siege had begun, it had also been the only one still remaining under imperial control. The Bariots had resisted valiantly, for no less than thirty-two months; but surrounded as they were by an impenetrable blockade by land and sea, they finally had no choice but to surrender. It was the end, after more than five centuries, of Byzantine Italy.
The reports from Bari had, however, at least been clear; from Manzikert, they were hopelessly confused, creating at the court of Constantinople an atmosphere of uncertainty and indecision. On one point only was everyone — with the possible exception of the Empress herself - in unanimous agreement: that even if Romanus were alive and at liberty he was now defeated and disgraced; there could be no question of his being allowed to continue as
basileus.
But who was to take his place? Some called for Eudocia to resume the supreme power that she had wielded before her marriage; others favoured Michael, her son by Constantine X - perhaps as a co-ruler with his younger brothers Andronicus and Constantine; yet others saw in the Caesar John Ducas (who now hurriedly returned from Bithynia, whither Romanus had exiled him before his departure) the best hope for the Empire in this moment of crisis. In the event, it was John who acted - though not, ostensibly, on his own behalf. There can be no doubt that he coveted the throne; on the other hand his own faction was not large enough to give a direct attempt upon it any real hope of success. Fortunately his nephew Michael was a weak-willed youth, with whom - once his mother were out of the way - John could do as he liked. Fortunately too he had the Varangian guard behind him. While the rest were still debating what was best to be done, he divided it into two groups. One, under the command of his recently-returned son Andronicus, charged through the Palace proclaiming Michael Emperor; with the other he marched straight to the Empress's apartments and arrested her.
It was all over quite quickly. The terrified Eudocia was exiled to a church she had founded at the mouth of the Hellespont, where she was shortly afterwards tonsured and compelled to take the veil. A similar sentence was passed on Anna Dalassena, sister-in-law of the late Emperor
Isaac Comnenus, as a warning to the only other family in the capital from whom trouble might be expected.
1
Michael VII Ducas was crowned with due ceremony by the Patriarch in St Sophia. It remained only to deal with Romanus Diogenes.
Romanus's movements after his departure from the Seljuk camp are hard indeed to trace: our authorities are few, and tend more often than not to contradict each other. All that we can deduce with any certainty is that he somehow managed to gather together what remained of his once-great army, with the intention of marching on the capital. John Ducas was, however, ready for him. There seem to have been two battles: one near Dokeia (Tokat) against a force commanded by the Caesar's youngest son Constantine, and one near Adana in Cilicia in which Romanus found himself confronted with the general who had betrayed him at Manzikert, Andronicus Ducas. In both he was defeated. After the second he finally gave himself up to Andronicus, agreeing to renounce all claims to the throne and to retire to a monastery, and receiving in return a guarantee from the new Emperor - endorsed by the Archbishops of Chalcedon, Heraclea and Colonea — that no harm would come to him.