Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, a distant cousin of Malik-Shah, who rules as a chieftain in western Anatolia, captures Nicaea and …

…Nicomedia in about 1075, threatening Constantinople.

Suleiman is the son of Qutalmish, who had struggled unsuccessfully against his cousin Alp Arslan for the throne of Great Seljuq Empire.

When Kutalmish died in 1064, Suleiman had fled with his three brothers into the Taurus Mountains and there sought refuge with Turkmen tribes living beyond the borders of the empire.

Alp Arslan had responded by launching a series of punitive expeditions against them.

Of the four brothers, Suleiman alone has survived the raids and has been able to consolidate his leadership of the Turkmen.

Suleiman has been appointed governor of the northwestern provinces and assigned to completing the invasion of Anatolia.

An explanation for this choice can only be conjectured from Ibn al-Athir’s account of the battle between Alp-Arslan and Qutalmish, in which he writes that Alp-Arslan wept for the latter's death and greatly mourned the loss of his kinsman.

The emperor Michael VII seeks the help of Suleiman in 1078 against Nikephoros Botaneiates, the commander of the Anatolic Theme, who has challenged the emperor for the throne.

Suleiman intercepts Botaneiates' small force between Cotyaeum and Nicaea, whereupon the usurper persuades Suleiman to join his rebellion by offering him incentives superior to those of the emperor.

Nikephoros' bid for power is successful, and in return for their support Suleiman's Turkmen are allowed to settle on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, near Constantinople itself.

Alp Arslan's victory at Manzikert in 1071 had been followed up by a Turkish conquest of Anatolia.

This campaign has been the work of independent Turkmen armies, such as that of Atsiz ibn Uvaq, and not of the Seljuq army.

As a result, the Sultanate of Rum, as Qutalmïsh calls his new state, does not acknowledge the authority of the House of Seljuq.

The activities of Qutalmïsh have attracted the concern of Malik-Shah, who has attempted unsuccessfully to dislodge his kinsman on several occasions.

However, after making Nicaea his capital and renaming it Iznik, Qutalmïsh in about 1080 assumes the title “sultan” in defiance of Malik-Shah, an event generally accepted as marking the beginning of independent Seljuq rule in Anatolia-known as Rüm (“Rome”—i.e., the eastern Roman Empire).

The heart of the empire's military and economic strength, which the Arabs had never mastered, is now under Turkish rule.

The general and aristocrat Nikephoros Melissenos had remained loyal to Michael VII Doukas during the rebellion of the strategos of the Anatolic Themeby Nikephoros Botaneiates (Nikephoros III).

Michael VII had rewarded him by appointing him to Botaneiates's post, but after Botaneiates's victory and entry into Constantinople in April 1078, Melissenos had been exiled to the island of Kos.

Leaving Kos and returning to Asia Minor in 1078, he had succeeded in gaining the support of the local population, and in recruiting many Turkish tribesmen as mercenaries to his army.

One by one, the cities of western and central Asia Minor have opened up their gates to him, and Turkish garrisons are installed in them.

Botaneiates tries to send Alexios Komnenos against him, but he refuses.

In February 1081, Melissenos's troops take Nicaea, where he is acclaimed as emperor, and defeats a loyalist army under the eunuch John.

Suleiman, having lent support to the pretender, is allowed to establish a permanent base a here.

All Bithynia is soon under Suleiman's control, a circumstance that allows him to restrict communication between Constantinople and the former imperial subjects in Anatolia.

Melissenos is encamped in March 1081 with his army at Damalis, on the Asian shore across the Bosporus from Constantinople, when he receives news of the revolt of the Komnenoi against Botaneiates and the proclamation of Alexios Komnenos as emperor.

He sends letters to the Komnenoi, suggesting a division of authority over the imperial territory, with the Balkans remaining under Komnenian control and himself keeping Asia Minor, although he also emphasized that the Byzantine Empire should remain united.

In reply, the Komnenoi offer to recognize him as Caesar—the second highest dignity after the imperial title itself—and to give him the governance of Thessalonica—the Empire's second-most important city—if he will submit to them.

Melissenos initially refuses to accept this offer, but as the Komnenoi are on the verge of taking Constantinople and might refuse to make similar concessions later, he eventually agrees.

At the same time, the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates tries to forestall the capital's fall to the Komnenoi by sending for Melissenos and asking him to enter the city and assume imperial authority.

His envoys, however, are obstructed by George Palaiologos and never reach Melissenos.

The result of the civil war means that pretenders to the imperial throne seek Turkic aid by conceding imperial territory.

The loss of cities such as Nicaea and another defeat in Anatolia has led to a prolongation of the war.

The civil aristocracy of Constantinople yields with bad grace.

Alexios Komnenos, the third son of John Komnenos and a nephew of Isaac I (emperor 1057-59), comes of a distinguished landed family and is one of the military magnates who have long urged more effective defense measures, particularly against the Turks' encroaching on imperial provinces in eastern and central Anatolia.

From 1068 to 1081, he has given able military service during the short reigns of Romanus IV, Michael VII, and Nikephoros III.

Now, with the support of his brother Isaac and his mother, the formidable Anna Dalassena, and with that of the powerful Doukas family, to which his wife, Irene, belongs, he seizes the imperial throne from Nikephoros III, who has been unable either to save the empire from disintegration or to maintain his own position as ruler.

Nikephoros abdicates on April 4, 1081, and enters the Peribleptos monastery in Constantinople.

After more than fifty years of ineffective or short-lived rulers, Alexios, in the words of his daughter and biographer Anna Komnena, finds the empire “at its last gasp.” According to her, the empire had been “slowly perishing over a long period; [it is] without armies and without money, for all its wealth, squandered to no good purpose, [has] now been exhausted.” To the east, the Seljuqs, who have conquered nearly all of Anatolia, occupy the Asian provinces; to the north, Pechenegs ravage the Danubian regions; and the Normans from southern Italy are preparing to attack from the west.

Following their stunning victory at Manzikert, the Seljuqs had overrun much of Anatolia, killing many people in the process.

By the time Alexios ascends the throne, the Seljuqs have taken most of Asia Minor.

Alexios has been able to secure much of the coastal regions by sending peasant soldiers to raid the Seljuq camps, but these victories are unable to stop the Turks altogether.

Alexios concludes a peace with the Seljuq sultan Sulayman ibn Qutalmïsh in 1081, conceding to him the territory he has captured.

Constantinople falls to the Komnenian forces, and on April 8, 1081, Melissenos too enters the imperial capital.

True to his word, Alexios I raises him to Caesar and gives him authority over Thessalonica, as well as allotting the city's revenues to his income.

At the same time, however, Alexios raises his brother Isaac Komnenos to the newly created dignity of sebastokrator, which he places above that of Caesar, bypassing Melissenos.

This act of submission, unique among the various rebels of the time, may throw some light on Melissenos's motivation for his uprising, according to the historian Jean-Claude Cheynet.

Cheynet believes that Melissenos was probably more concerned with safeguarding his Asian estates from the depredations of the Turks, and when Alexios granted him Thessalonica and equivalent estates around it—some of which Melissenos later distributed to his clients, like the Bourtzes family—he readily gave up the contest for the imperial throne.

Despite the end of Melissenos's revolt, it leaves a profound legacy: although Melissenos himself submits to Alexios Komnenos, the towns he has occupied and garrisoned with Turkish soldiers in Ionia, Phrygia, Galatia, and Bithynia remain in their hands.

Thus, by becoming involved in the Empire’s civil wars as mercenaries and allies—especially through their use by Botaneiates and Melissenos during their respective revolts to hold down various cities for them—the Turks complete their relatively peaceful takeover of central and western Asia Minor.

Melissenos will continues to serve Alexios I faithfully throughout the rest of his life.

Emperor Alexios has already provided much gold to Robert Guiscard's deposed nephews, now living in exile in Constantinople, who now return to raise a revolt in Apulia.

Alexios has meanwhile pointed out to the German king Henry IV the danger of allowing Guiscard and his Normans to remain unchecked, and in the spring of 1082 the two rulers enter into an agreement in return for a mutual oath of alliance.

Alexios sends Henry three hundred and sixty thousand gold pieces plus many other extravagant gifts.

Having drained his treasury to bribe the German king, Alexios has no money to pay his mercenaries and he cannot press his citizens for more tax money.

After the royal family contributes all they have, the Church fathers finally contribute, enabling Alexios to raise a new army.

Philaretos Brachamios, noted for his cruelty and greed, had held a high command in the army of Romanus IV Diogenes.

As the commander of the main imperial army that was protecting the frontier of Mesopotamia while Romanus participated in the siege of Akhlat in 1069, he had been defeated by the Seljuq Turks who advanced deep into Cappadocia and Lycaonia and plundered at will before rapidly retreating with their spoils.

He was present at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, where he had commanded a division of Romanus' army, and had remained at the head of a considerable body of troops after the disaster.

In the aftermath of the battle, he had commanded the forces of the fortress Romanopolis, and on Romanus' death he had assumed the title of Emperor.

As the only remaining imperial general in the southeast, he had established a quasi-autonomous realm in the neighborhood of Germanicia, which stretched from Cilicia to Edessa.

The core of his army was composed of eight thousand "Franks" (Normans) under Raimbaud.

In 1078, at the beginning of the rule of Nikephoros III Botaneiates, he had agreed to abandon his imperial claims on condition that Botaneiates appoint him as the duke of Antioch, which includes Edessa.

Several seals testify him as megas domestikos and protokouropalates, then sebastos, then even protosebastos.

He retains his dukedom until the Turks begin to press heavily upon him.

He loses Antioch to Suleiman I, Sultan of Rum, in December 1084.