Great Bat tLeS
took their name from founding Chieftain Seljuk
ibn Duqaq, to become Sunni Muslims.
The Seljuk march of conquest began in 1037
when chieftain Tughril Bey came to power. After
driving the Persianate Muslim Ghaznawids
south towards India, Tughril then carved a path
of conquest through the crumbling Abbasid
Caliphate. He established his sultanate in
1055 in Baghdad, thus taking control of
the impotent caliphate. During the early
years of the Great Seljuk Empire, the Seljuk
army recruited heavily among free Turkmen
tribesmen who willingly fought alongside their
brethren in the quest for plunder and land.
When Tughril died at the age of 70 in
September 1063 his nephew Muhammad
bin Dawud Chaghri, who bore the honorific
Alp Arslan (heroic lion), became the Great
Seljuksultan.Arslanclashedrepeatedlyinthe late 1060s with the Byzantines in the
highlands of Armenia and Upper Mesopotamia.
Yet his principal enemy was not the Byzantine
Empire, but rather the Fatimid Caliphate
based in Egypt. This was because the Shiite
Fatimids posed a serious threat to his
position in the Islamic world.
Arslan captured the Armenian capital of Ani
in 1064. In the years that followed, he directed
his subordinates to conduct raids deep into the
Byzantine interior while he steadily chipped away
at the Byzantine Empire’s frontier defences.Romanos takes the offensive
Romanos set to work immediately after he
came to power building an army that could
campaign on the eastern front. The tried-
and-true Byzantine recruitment system
painstakinglyputin placebyBasilII thatproduced loyal peasant-soldiers from Anatolia
had been allowed to rot in the decades
following his rule. For that reason Romanos was
forced to rely heavily on foreign mercenaries.
The core of his army consisted of Armenians,
Bulgarians, Byzantines, Franks, Germans,
Greeks, Normans, and Varangians. His light
cavalry consisted primarily of Pechenegs.
In keeping with his promise to rid the empire
of the annoying Seljuk menace, he led his army
into Syria in 1068 where he demonstrated
against Aleppo. The following year he suffered
a bloody repulse at the hands of the Seljuks
defending their fortress of Ahlat on the north
shore of Lake Van. The following year Romanos
focused his resources on containing the Norman
advance against Byzantine territory in southern
Italy. Arslan took advantage of his nemesis’
absencein thefieldin 1070to capturethe“TheTried-and-TrueByzanTinerecruiTmenTsysTempainsTakinglypuTinplaceBy Basilii
ThaT produced loyal peasanT-soldiers fromanaTolia hadBeen allowedTo roT”