Battle of Myriokephalon (1176): Manuel I's Defeat in Anatolia

The Battle of Myriokephalon was fought on 17 September 1176 in a mountain pass in south-western Anatolia, between the Byzantine army of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and the Seljuk Turks of the Sultanate of Rum under Kilij Arslan II. Marching to besiege the Seljuk capital of Konya, the Byzantines were ambushed and badly mauled. The defeat ended Manuel’s hopes of recovering central Anatolia and confirmed the Turkish hold on the plateau first opened at Manzikert a century earlier.

Background

After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 Turkish rulers took most of inner Anatolia. Under Alexios I and John II Komnenos the Byzantines recovered the coastlands and river valleys, but the plateau remained in the hands of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, centred on Ikonion (Konya), and its rivals, the Danishmendids.

Manuel I (r. 1143–1180) at first managed the Seljuks by diplomacy. In 1161–1162 Sultan Kilij Arslan II made a long visit to Constantinople, was received with great honour and agreed to become the emperor’s ally. In the following years, however, Kilij Arslan used the peace to conquer the Danishmendid lands and greatly strengthen his state. Manuel, busy in Hungary, Italy and Egypt, could do little to stop him.

The campaign of 1176

By the 1170s relations had broken down. In 1175 Manuel rebuilt the frontier fortresses of Dorylaeum and Soublaion to secure the routes into Seljuk territory. In 1176 he gathered a large army, including allied and mercenary contingents, for a campaign to take Konya itself. Its size is unknown, but it was large and slowed by a long baggage and siege train; the historian Niketas Choniates, who served at court, says it stretched for about ten miles.

Kilij Arslan sent envoys offering peace, which Manuel rejected on the advice of younger commanders. The emperor then led his army east from the Maeander valley through mountainous country, past the ruined fort of Myriokephalon and into the narrow Tzivritze pass.

The battle

On 17 September 1176 Turkish troops waiting on the heights attacked the column as it moved through the pass. The vanguard, under John Angelos, Andronikos Angelos and Constantine Makrodoukas, pushed through and reached open ground with relatively light losses. The troops behind it were less fortunate.

Baldwin of Antioch, Manuel’s brother-in-law, charged the Turks on the slopes with his cavalry and was killed. The baggage animals and siege engines jammed the road, and the Turks shot down men and pack animals in the narrow valley. Manuel, in the centre, eventually forced his way through but, according to Choniates, was so shaken that he considered abandoning the army. The rearguard under Andronikos Kontostephanos held together and reached the camp.

Losses are not reliably recorded. Choniates describes heavy casualties and the loss of the siege train, but the army as a whole survived.

The truce

The next day Kilij Arslan, perhaps unsure of his own position, offered terms. The Byzantines could withdraw if Manuel demolished the forts of Dorylaeum and Soublaion. Manuel accepted and led his army back to Byzantine territory. He pulled down Soublaion but kept Dorylaeum, and the sultan’s forces responded by raiding the Maeander valley.

In 1177 a Byzantine army under John Vatatzes defeated one of these Turkish raiding forces near the Maeander, at Hyelion and Leimocheir. The frontier settled into a stalemate.

Significance

Manuel himself admitted the defeat in a letter to Henry II of England, preserved by the chronicler Roger of Howden, and Choniates reports that the emperor compared it to Manzikert. Modern historians stress that the comparison was exaggerated: Byzantium lost no territory, its army was not destroyed and no civil war followed.

The real cost was strategic and political. Myriokephalon ended the last serious Byzantine attempt to conquer central Anatolia, and Manuel’s prestige in East and West suffered. He died on 24 September 1180, and the empire soon fell into turmoil, culminating in the Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Sultanate of Rum, meanwhile, flourished in the 13th century.

Key people

• Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180): grandson of Alexios I, an ambitious emperor who pursued power in Italy, Hungary and the Crusader states as well as in Anatolia.
• Kilij Arslan II (r. 1156–1192): Seljuk sultan of Rum, who united most of central Anatolia under his rule and made Konya a major capital.
• Baldwin of Antioch: brother of Manuel’s second wife, Maria of Antioch, killed leading a cavalry charge during the battle.
• Andronikos Kontostephanos: experienced Byzantine commander who led the rearguard safely through the pass.
• Niketas Choniates (c. 1155–1217): Byzantine official and historian whose Annals give the fullest account of the campaign.

Timeline

• 1071: Seljuk victory at Manzikert.
• 1161–1162: Kilij Arslan II visits Constantinople as Manuel’s guest.
• 1175: Manuel refortifies Dorylaeum and Soublaion.
• 1176, 17 September: Battle of Myriokephalon.
• 1176, 18 September: Truce; the Byzantine army withdraws.
• 1177: Byzantine victory over Turkish raiders near the Maeander.
• 1180, 24 September: Manuel I Komnenos dies.

Why it matters

Myriokephalon marked the end of Byzantine ambitions to reverse the Turkish settlement of Anatolia. It showed the limits of the Komnenian revival and helped make central Anatolia permanently the heartland of Turkish states, from the Sultanate of Rum to the Ottomans.