ABSTRACT
Byzantium to Manzikert No doubt the disaster that befell Byzantine arms on the enclosed plain near Manzikert could be explained in terms of the battle management of a motley army inevitably being too set-piece to cope with the tactical opportunism of Seljuk mounted bowmen. But further back in the chain of causation is the decline of the limitanei, the defence posture based on soldier-peasant settlement on the Anatolian plateau.
