… Manzikert, Caesarea and Iconium.
"By 1045 the Byzantines had stabilized their eastern borders with the Arabs and eliminated Bulgaria as a threat. But they were still being pressed by Muslim armies in Italy as well as the Christian Normans.
This fairly peaceful situation did not last. A new enemy appeared. The second half of the 11th century was marked by the strategically significant invasion of the Seljuq Turks, who by the end of the 1040s had succeeded in building a vast nomadic empire including most of Central Asia and Persia.
The Seljuqs united the fractured political scene of the eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuqs also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, even exporting Persian culture to Anatolia.
The settlement of Turkic tribes in the northwestern peripheral parts of the empire, for the strategic military purpose of fending off invasions from neighboring states, led to the progressive Turkicization of those areas…"
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Amicalement
Armand
considers the Battle of Delium, 424 B.C.
