The History of Malazgirt
It is said that history is written by the victors. But this is not always true, especially in the West, where at least some of our history was written by the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire as it fought a losing, 400-year war with various Muslim peoples to the east.
The idea of heathens besieging the gates of Europe took hold in the Western imagination, inspiring attitudes that still exist today. But history tells a different story; namely that much of the Byzantines’ steep decline was because they were really mean to each other and that tolerance and even friendship existed between the two sides against all the odds.
A vivid example of this was the personal encounter between Emperor Romanus IV and the Seljuk leader Alp Arslan at the Battle of Manzikert (known to Turks as Malazgirt) in 1071, seen as the beginning of the end of the Byzantines and the beginning of the beginning of the Islamization of Anatolia and the creation of Turkey as we know it today.
In the 11th century, the once-great Byzantine Empire was in trouble. Bloody coups and cruel assassinations were common, and the economy was in freefall, which left the empire vulnerable to rival powers. Emperor Constantine X sought peace in theology and philosophy, donating the empire’s wealth to the church, and leaving his duties to his corrupt family, who disbanded much of the army and pocketed the money.
The emperor died in 1067. His dying wish to his wife Eudokia was that she not remarry so that he would be succeeded by one of his children. The factions started circling and the empire braced itself for more instability and even darker days. But now-Empress Regent Eudokia had a plan.
Enter Romanos Diogenes. He was basically everything the Byzantines could have hoped for. He was brave, handsome, experienced in both politics and war, and was a member of the most powerful noble family in Cappadocia. He was known for his discipline and justice, and for cutting off a soldier’s nose for stealing a donkey from a Muslim. He had fought in Syria and the Balkans before being appointed duke of Serdica, where he fell out with the local nobles and was imprisoned in 1067.
A year later he was dragged out of prison, he assumed to be executed. Instead, he was taken to the palace to meet Empress Eudokia, who first pardoned him, then admitted that she had always had a bit of a crush on him, then commanded him to marry her and become the new Emperor.
Romanus was having rather a good day, and quickly got to work to Make Byzantium Great Again to thank the gods for his fortune. His priority was the Seljuk Empire to the east, where Oghuz Turkmen had conquered Persia just 30 years earlier and had been raiding the Byzantine’s eastern border ever since.
Their leader was the legendary Alp Arslan, known for his military skills and sense of justice and honor, inspired by his faith in Islam, to which his grandfather had converted his people just a few decades earlier. His loyal army and mounted archers were toughest guys in town.
Having apparently learned nothing from the fall of the Western Roman Empire 500 years before, the Byzantine army consisted of mercenaries and the private armies rival of noble families. After two successful Anatolian campaigns that Romanus led himself, in he marched into Anatolia in 1071 with an army of 30,000 men, including Germans, Armenians, Turkish mercenaries, and Crusader nights to face Alp Arslan’s main army, which had occupied the Cilician fortress of Malazgirt.
As they approached the site, Romanus felt the hand of history on his shoulder. His men, however, did not. Some of the noble families immediately left the battlefield, the Turkish mercenaries switched sides, and most of the rest fled after a rumor spread that Romanus had been killed.
Unfazed by such minor setbacks, Romanus heroically charged into the thick of battle, where he and the remaining Byzantine forces were eventually surrounded, a key moment in Malazgirt.
When the prisoners were taken before Alp Arslan he first didn’t believe that the soldier in front of him was the Roman Emperor. He forced Romanus to kiss the ground, while he rested his foot on his head and demanded his official surrender. He then proposed selling him as a slave to one of his men in return for a dog, before turning to Romanus and asking what he would do it the roles were reversed.
“The worst”, Romanus replied. Impressed by this honesty and bravery, Alp Arslan ordered that Romanus be treated like an honored guest, and that he be allowed to return to Constantinople.
When Romanus reached the capital, he found a new emperor, Michael VII, son of Constantine, had deposed him and forced Eudokia to retire to a monastery. Outraged, Romanus attacked the Viking Imperial Guard but was defeated. He fled to Adana, pursued by his enemies.
Taking shelter in an Armenian castle, he resigned himself to his fate, collected all the wealth he had left, and sent it to the only person he trusted, Alp Arslan, with a letter saying, “Dethroned, and about to become dependent upon others, I send you all I possess as proof of my gratitude”.
When the emperor’s army arrived in Adana they offered to spare Romanus’ life if he surrendered, which he did. But instead of setting him free they cut out his eyes and exiled him to the Monastery of the Transfiguration on Kinaliada outside Istanbul. Here he died a slow and painful death from his infected wounds and is today buried at an unknown location at the top of the hill.
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