III. The Beginnings of Transformation

BEGINNINGS OF TRANSFORMATION
described the early twelfth century as a period of tribulations and
massacres. 157
When Romanus IV Diogenes arrived at Erzerum in 1071,
prior to the battle of Manzikert, two months' rations were distributed to
the army as "they were about to march through uninhabited land which
had been trampled underfoot by the foreigners." 158
NORTHERN ANATOLIA
The regions of northern Asia Minor lay similarly exposed to the up­
setting effects of the Turkish invasion during the latter halfofthe eleventh
century. The critical period was the reign of Michael VII Ducas (1071-
78). The whole of the coastal region from Heracleia to Trebizond as
well as the hinterland about the Iris (Yeshil Irmak) and the lower Halys
(Kïzïl Irmak) were turned into areas offrequent raiding and plundering,
and were in many cases partially abandoned by the Christian population. 159
During this reign the Turks had come into northern Asia Minor in
comparatively large numbers and the roads were no longer safe, 160
thatbythereignofNicephorus III Botaniates (1078-81) most of the coastal
regions were in Turkish hands. 161
so
Though the Byzantines were able to
recover the coastal regions by 1085 162
and even some of the hinterland, 163
at least temporarily, northern Asia Minor remained a scene of continuous
raiding and warfare throughout the twelfth century among Byzantines,
Danishmendids, Seljuks, Georgians, Saltukids, and Menguchekids. There
is very little specific information as to the fate of individual coastal
areas. Both Sinope and Trebizond were taken by the Turks and retaken
by the Byzantines in the late eleventh century, 164
and many of the towns
must have suffered, in varying degrees, from the upheaval. Joseph, the
metropolitan of Trebizond, writing at a later date on the reinstatement of
the great religious and commercial celebration of Trebizond, the pane-
gyris of St. Eugenius, remarks :
The Forgetting of the Celebration of the Birth of the Saint
At that time [eleventh century] there [were] massacres and captures of cities
and collections of prisoners and there attended all those things which are grievous
to life . . . . From that time the memory of the celebration became the victim of
deep oblivion, and again this annual celebration forgot the city, as the necessities
1 6 5
were lacking.
1 5 7
Matthew of Edessa, p. 239.
1 5 8
Attaliates, 148.
1 6 9
Michael the Syrian, III, 72. Attaliates, 199. The Greek forts and cities were in a
state of terror, and Michael VII gathered people from Pontus and moved them across the
sea. Danishmcndname-Melikoff, I, 112.
1 6 0
Bryennius, 86-95.
1 6 1
Anna Comnena, I, 18. Michael the Syrian, III, 175. Heracleia, and possibly
Sinope and Trebizond, were exceptions, though the latter two were occupied by the
Turks for a short period.
1 6 2
Anna Comnena, II, 64, 151.
1 6 3
Ibid., III, 29-30.
164
Ibid., II, 64, 66, 151.
1 6 5
In Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Ist. trap, imp., I, 59.
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