III. The Beginnings of Transformation

BEGINNINGS OF TRANSFORMATION
Rukn al-Din burned the town of Laodiceia Combusta forty kilometers
north of Konya at the end of the twelfth century for having mistreated a
member of the dynasty. 188
The fact that Kîlïdj II Arslan rebuilt Coloneia
Archelais (Aksaray) would seem to imply, much in the same manner as
Caesareia and Sebasteia, that it too had suffered devastation. 189
This detailed, yet incomplete, survey of Anatolia during the latter
part of the eleventh and the twelfth century indicates that violence,
destruction, and upheaval accompanied the Turkish invasions and
occupation ofthe peninsula. Consequently, the lament ofAnna Comnena
on the fate of Byzantine Anatolia constitutes something more than an
empty rhetorical exercise:
And since the succession of Diogenes the barbarians tread upon the boundaries
of the empire of the Rhomaioi . . . the barbarian hand was not restricted until the
reign of my father. Swords and spears were whetted against the Christians, and
also battles, wars, and massacres. Cities were obliterated, lands were plundered,
and the whole land of the Rhomaioi was stained by bIood of Christians. Some fell
piteously [the victims] of arrows and spears, others being driven away from their
homes were carried off captives to the cities of Persia. Terror reigned over all and
they hastened to hide in the caves, forests, mountains, and hills. Among them
some cried aloud in horror at those things which they suffered, being led off to
Persia; and others who yet survived (if some did remain within the Rhomaic
boundaries), lamenting, cried, the one for his son, the other for his daughter.
One bewailed his brother, another his cousin who had died previously, and like
women shed hot tears. And there was at that time not one relationship which
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was without tears and without sadness.
Obviously in some areas the destruction was greater; in other areas, less
severe. It cannot be maintained that the Turkish conquest operated with
ease and without serious disturbance of Anatolian society. On the other
hand, it would be just as erroneous to assert that the destruction was
complete.
his army slew 7,000 Muslims. Ginnamus, 45. Histoire des Seljoukides d'Asie Mineure par un
anonyme, trans. F. Uzluk (Ankara, 1952), pp. 24-25. Frederick Barbarossa also burned
the city during the Third Crusade. Nicetas Choniates, 542.
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Ibn Bibi-Duda, pp. 22-23.
1 8 9
Uzluk, Histoire des Seljoukides, p. 25. The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat-al-Qulub
composed by Hamd-allah Mustawfi qf Qazwin in 740 (1340), trans. G. Le Strange (London,
1919), p. 96, relates that Kïlidj II Arslan rebuiltit in 1171 (hereafter cited as 0_azwini-
Le Strange). The Tarikh-i-guzida or "Select History" of Hamdullah Mustawfi-i-Qazwini,
E. G. Browne (Leiden-London, 1913), p. 108.
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