Roman Shlyakhtin, Central European University, Budapest

Myriokephalon revisited: Note on the sources, context and consequences of one

battle

The battle at Myriokephalon (1176) is one of the key points of the Byzantine-Seljuk military
confrontation in 12 century. In this year army of Byzantine emperor Manuel Komnenos was defeated in
the defile Myriokephalon by the army of nomadic conglomerate of Ikonion led by sultan Kilidj Arslan II.
Manuel I survived and signed peace with Kilidj Arslan II. According to peace conditions, Manuel was to
destroy two newly-built fortresses and pay the ransom for prisoners. Ralph-Johannes Lilie analyzed this
story in 1975 and came to the conclusion that the defeat at Myriokephalon was not directly decisive for
the Byzantine-Seljuk confrontation. The aim of this paper is to make remarks on the battle

My first point is about the date and place of the battle. Anonymous contemporary chronicle (edited by
Peter Schreiner) stated that it happened on 17 of September 1176. This immediately means that army
leaders were not young knights with rose cheeks. Manuel Komnenos was in his fifties, while Kilidj Arslan
II was about sixty or even sixty-five. Both were old and experienced enemies. That’s about the date:
place of the battle was a subject to a debate between scholars. Michael Hendy with a help of 19 th
century British itinerary proved, that it probably happened some 20 kilometres east from modern
Ikonion near the village of Kiziloren.

However, it was not the only battle fought at that very place. According to John France in 1097 Turkmen
attacked here warriors of the First Crusade but did not reach success. In 1146 retreating army of Manuel
I Komnenos was attacked at the very same place by united forces of Mas’ud of Ikonion and the
Danishmnedids.. Finally, in 1190 Seljuks tried to guide the army of Frederich Barbarossa into the ill-fated
defile, but the emperor defeated the attackers, and after some pause retreated from Myriokephalon .
Thus, one can speak about four battles at Myriokephalon ought between 1090 and 1190. This
presentation is mostly about the third one

First, about the problems of the most famous source for the battle. Most famous (and most widely used
by scholars) is the description created by Niketas Choniates. Close analysis of the text of Choniates with
the whole arsenal of modern literary theory reveals several problems which can lead to re-evaluation of
his work. Narrative of Choniates contains some stories, which are at least doubtful. When the emperor
dramatically flights from his enemies, an unknown warrior comes to the scene and blames him for his
greed twice. Later another unknown warrior blames Manuel for cowardice. I doubt that these stories
can be used for the reconstruction of the battle and consider them to be rather topoi introduced by
Choniates
Motives of greed and unattentiveness remind me about two other “crowned battle-losers” of Byzantine
history, namely Nikephoros I and Romanos Diogenes (described by Theophanes the Confessor and
Michael Psellos respectively). If one takes into account, that Niketas wrote his Myriokephalon story at
the end of the Angeloi reign, one can suppose that he need a kind of explanation for the change of
dynasty in 1183. Andronikos tyranny was not enough, so Niketas created a tragic battle-scene to show
the mistakes of Manuel Komnenos. Any kind of reconstruction of the battle must take this possible bias
of Niketas into account – after all, there are 19 more sources in 5 languages.

My second point is about the Byzantine planning in the Myriokephalon campaign .As I already said the
battle happened in the beginning of the autumn. This is not a usual time for battles In autumn the Seljuk
tribes gathered together and sultan could mobilize them easily. Manuel Komnenos waged wars against
the Seljuks from his adolescence and probably knew it. Why did he came out so late in 1176?

According to Kinnamos, the reason was in the Serbian and Hungarian allies, who and postponed the
departure of the army. I think, that another explanation is possible. According to the NASA calendar of
eclipses, the solar eclipse occurred on 11 April 1176 and was visible in Asia Minor. Manuel is famous for
his zeal for astrology, so one can suppose that the expedition was delayed due to the bad omen.

Another problem was obviously in Byzantine battle plan. According to all the sources, Manuel sent the
best part of his army to occupy the western end of the defile and then moved the reset of the army ,
putting the heavily armored baggage train as a column in between. I think, that this battle plan was to a
great extent inspired by Manuel’s previous experience: in 1146 his army was attacked by the Seljuks
from the East and in 1176 emperor wanted to block their way.

However (and that’s my third point) the Seljuks played differently and attacked the Byzantines and their
allies from the heights. In 1147 when fighting the Crusaders the Seljuks used suspiciously similar
measures against the army of French king Louis in the battle of mount Cadmus. I think, that one can
even speak about same stratagem used in both cases by the Seljuk Turks against the army of the enemy
with a huge baggage train.

The battle is considered to be the victory of the Seljuks. But for their leader, Kilidj Arslan II it was a very
victory. Before the battle he called to his army a lot of so-called “free Seljuks” which lived in the area of
upper Tigrus and Euphartes. The victory (which was rather unexpected) led to the open rebellion of
Turcoman warriors, who wanted to destroy the significant rest of imperial army and to plunder the
imperial camp. Sultan Kilidj Arslan II did not control the mercenaries and they tried to attack the
Byzantine army already after the formal peace of restored.

Now I have to say a few words about the outcome of the battle. The Byzantines recovered fast. Manuel
did not destroy Doyrlaion, the fortress which he promised to destroy. In the year of 1177 Byzantine
slaughtered participants of the plundering Seljuk raid on the Meander crossing. The border line was not
affected much: the problem was in the diplomacy. Byzantine enemies in Western Europe tried to use
the news about Myriokephalon to their best. Manuel’s advisers organized their own “public relations”
campaign, which however was only partly successful.

Seljuks also informed all the rulers of the Middle East about the victory: special embassy with scalps and
presents was sent to the caliph of Baghdad. Kilidj Arslan II used the battle to destroy the last of the
Danishmendids and capture Melitene. The battle seem to be very profitable: according to the work of
Johann Hinrichs, sultan of Ikonion started to mint the golden coins with his name exactly in 1176.

However, the most important part of the battle is usually forgotten or ignored. Myriokephalon was an
obvious pyschotrauma for an aging Manuel Komnenos. The effect of the shock lasted for years:
according to William of Tyre in 1179 emperor could not sleep well in the nights at all, woke up and
shouted. This shock probably affected the health of the emperor, who died in 1180. The death of the
flamboyant emperor led to a stabilization of the border zone for long 100 years. In this sense, the author
of the Anonymous Chronicle 26 and Ralph Lilie are only partly right when they call the battle ot
Myriokephalon καταλυσις of Manuel Komnenos. To my mind it was καταλυσις of Komnenian
reconquista in Asia Minor at all.