European Kingdoms

Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire
Ducas / Doukas Dynasty (AD 1059-1081)

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From the start, the capital of the newly-created Eastern Roman empire was based at Constantinople, dedicated by Emperor Constantine 'the Great' in AD 330. In AD 395, the Roman empire finally suffered a permanent split, creating formal Eastern Roman and Western Roman empires within Europe and beyond, acknowledging what had existed in practise for many years.

The successful two hundred-year reign of the 'Macedonian Dynasty' by 1025 had restored Constantinople as the dominant power in the Balkans and Near East, with apparently secure frontiers along the Danube, in the Armenian highlands, and beyond the Euphrates. The Romans had also succeeded in exporting Christianity to the Rus.

These success were though a last 'hurrah' for the empire. It had managed to double its shrunken territory under the Macedonians, but the successor 'Non-Dynastic' ruler and then the brief 'Comnenian Prelude' and the 'Dynasty of the Ducas' entirely reversed that positive trend.

Constantinople was now struggling for its existence. All of its frontiers had been or were being breached, nomads were entering Anatolia and the Danube provinces, while the Normans had seized the empire's Italian territories in Apulia and elsewhere.

Romanus IV Diogenes led the Eastern Romans to a shocking defeat to the Seljuqs at the Battle of Manzikert in Armenia in 1071. Only the succeeding 'Dynasty of the Comneni' would lead a brief revival and a staunch resistance.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, and from External Links: History of the Byzantine Empire (Live Science), and The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, Jonathan Shepard (Ed, Revised Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2008, and available via the Internet Archive).)

1059 - 1067

First successor to the Comnenian prelude.

1064

Armenia is conquered by the Seljuq Turks invading Asia Minor.

1067 - 1071

Captured.

1071

Having already extended his new empire into western Iran and Mesopotamia, the Seljuq leader Alp Arslan now defeats an immense Eastern Roman army which includes a unit of six hundred Alani, and captures Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes. This victory opens the gates to a large-scale Turkic influx into western Anatolia.

In eastern and central Anatolia, settlements and small domains are set up by the Mangūjakids around Divriği (Tephrike), Erzincan (Keltzine), and Kemah (Camcha) until 1252. The Saltuqids rule Erzurum (Theodosiopolis) until 1201. The Dānishmendids control Sivas, Kayseri (Caesarea Cappadociae), and Amasya (Amaseia) until 1177.

Western Anatolia is the focus of Qutalmïsh and his son, Sulaymān, a distant cousin of soon-to-be 'Great Seljuq', Sultan Malik-Shāh (from 1072). His territory becomes the splinter sultanate of Rum. Initially this remains subservient to the Persian Seljuqs but is always straining against the leash under its leader. Palestine is also conquered.

1071

Claimed title.

1071 - 1078

1074

A further six thousand Alani in 1074 fight for the Eastern Romans against the Normans in Italy. This cooperation lasts only a short because the Alani are badly paid.

c.1075

Sulaymān of Rum captures Nicaea (İznik) and Nicomedia (İzmit), threatening Constantinople itself around 1075. This prompts the new emperor, Michael VII Ducas, to appeal to Pope Gregory VII for aid against the invaders. Sulaymān's activities also attracted the concern of the Great Seljuq Malik-Shāh, who attempts unsuccessfully to dislodge his kinsman on several occasions.

1078 - 1081

Revolt of Nicephorus Bryennius.

c.1080

Having made Nicaea his capital and renaming it İznik, Sulaymān now assumes the title 'sultan' of Rum in defiance of Great Seljuq Malik-Shāh, an event that is generally accepted as marking the beginning of independent Seljuq rule in Anatolia. He spends the next few years expanding his holdings to the east and south.

1081

A Ducas descendant in 1204 sets up a rival claim from his base in Thessalonica but, in the short term the dynasty is replaced in power by the Comneni.