ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the developments in Byzantine Asia Minor in the decade between the aftermath of Manzikert and the rise to power of Alexios I Komnenos. The imperial government tried to face the precarious situation in Asia Minor by dispatching new military forces and by using diplomatic means to establish alliances with warrior groups operating in the region. The chapter also deals with a central feature of political thought in Byzantium, going back to the period of the empire's confrontation with the barbarian migrations in Late Antiquity. For instance, the ideas that historians and court orators expressed on the occasion of the Gothic-Roman treaty of 382 in many respects resemble Attaleiates' vision of a Byzantine-Turkish coalition. It is striking that very few early Muslim sources transmitting material about the Turkish expansion in Asia Minor clearly refer to the activities of Sulayman b. Qutlumush in the time preceding his expedition to Antioch.
