The plain of Dorylaion (Eskişehir) and the valley of the Bathys (Porsuk) are summer grazing for Turkmen who face Byzantine Bithynia across the Sangarios hills (Belokome, Angelokoma, Malagina).
In late summer or autumn 1196 a great band of nomads camped by the Bathys near Dorylaion, and Alexios III marched out for a month to show his force at Nicaea and Prousa, perhaps sending gifts to the Turkmen to keep them off (Choniates, as read by Brand). Whether they answer to Mas'ud of Ankara, to the sultan or to no one in 1200 is not pinned.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not pinned: no chief is named for this frontier in the 1190s.
- Title
- emirs (beys) of the frontier Turkmen
- Since
- the nomads pressed Dorylaion from the 1170s; Manuel I rebuilt it in 1175 to hold them back
- Family
- Oghuz Turkmen clans (not named)
- Confidence
- low
Brand p. 149 (from Choniates) for the camp of 1196.
Overlord
The sultan of Konya in name; Mas'ud of Ankara claims the plain under his 1186 share ('reaching Eskişehir').
How things stand that morning
Grazing on the plateau edge; no raid into Bithynia is dated to the winter of 1199-1200 (Bithynia: 'imperial and quiet'). West and north are the Byzantine forts of Bithynia (byzantium); east, Mas'ud's Ankara (Mas'ud of Ankara); south, Kütahya (Turkish, commander not pinned).
Customs
As on the western uç: chiefs and elders, seasonal moves, raids into Bithynia when the chance offers.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- autumn 1200Alexios III marches into Bithynia as far as the baths of Pythia near Prousa and threatens the sultan with war before peace is made.Depends on: the quarrel of 1200. Stopped by: an earlier settlement.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: One dated notice (1196) and the general pattern of the frontier.
On the map: Drawn as the plain and valley where the 1196 camp lay; the edges are guesses.
Primary sources for The Turkmen
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Chronicle of Smbat Sparapet (Sempad the Constable), Smbat Sparapet, brother of King Hetum I of Cilicia (about 1270 to 1276). The Cilician court chronicle, drawing on Matthew of Edessa for its early part and on family memory later. Read online
- The History of the Seljuks of Rum, Ibn Bibi (Nasir al-Din Husayn ibn Muhammad) (about 1281 to 1285, at Konya). The main Seljuk narrative for Rum begins with Kilij Arslan II's partition of the sultanate among his sons and his death (1192), Kaykhusraw I's first reign at Konya, his deposition in 1196 to 1197 by Rukn al-Din Sulayman II, Kaykhusraw's wanderings to Cilician Armenia, Aleppo and Constantinople, Sulayman's reduction of his brothers' towns (Tokat, Malatya, Amasya, and Ankara by 1204) and his Erzurum and Georgian campaigns. Read online
Sources and studies
- C. M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West 1180-1204 (1968), pp. 98-99, 149-151, 362 (following Niketas Choniates, Euthymios Tornikes and Ibn Bibi)
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'Kılıcarslan II' (A. Özaydın)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.