Scarp The interior wall of a ditch of a fortification at the foot of the walls. Counterscarp is the outside wall of the moat or ditch.
Scholae See Byzantine Army—Tagmata. The oldest and most famous of the Byzantine imperial tagmata cavalry regiments. They replaced the Praetorian Guards of the ancients after the battle of the Milvian Bridge when Constantine (306–337) won control over the Roman Empire, making some concessions to Christianity.
Seljuk Turks Descendants of the Oghuz, the Seljuks emerged as a distinct Turkic tribal group in the early 11th Century. They converted from paganism or animism to Sunni Islam.
Shaddadids See Kurds.
Seljuk Army The Cultural Atlas of the Turkish World published by the Turkish Cultural Service Foundation, provides some insight into the organisation of the Seljuk Army. Basic organisation comprised:
•Gulâmân-I suray (‘youths of the palace’) palace guards. Well turned out and equipped with responsibility for the safety of the sultan and high standard of ceremonial duties.
•Hassa ordusa (imperial guard). Professional cavalry with a weight of armour comparable to the tagmata or West European knights of the time. By the end of the 11th Century there were said to be 20,000 of them. The corps was probably based on the ghulams of the Abbasid Caliphate.
•Sipahiyan (knights). These were cavalrymen who supported themselves off their private fiefs, comparable to the theme soldiers of Byzantium.
•Haşer. Ordinary people drafted into the army and paid a wage.
•Gaziyân (raiders). These were professional troops used for cross border raiding—a state sponsored continuation of the Muslim ghazi tradition.
•Infantry. The Daylamis provided the backbone of the professional infantry.
•Turkoman tribesmen. Overwhelmingly the famous horse-archers, these were the clan followers of the emirs who only loosely obeyed the Sultan’s direction. By their migrations, raiding and participation in major campaigns, they were a major if unreliable source of Seljuk state power.
•Specialists. These included: physicians, veterinarians, armourers, judges, siege engineers et cetera. The sophistication of Seljuk siege operations at Manzikert bespeaks the increasing sophistication of their military force.
•Allies. It seems a number of allies joined the Seljuk campaign of 1054 and those before and after it: Kurds, Daylamis and troops from Chorasmia (an old Persian satrapy south of the Aral Sea) being mentioned in the sources.
The size of the Seljuk army during the Manzikert campaign is difficult to gauge. A very large field army for the time would have been 50,000 troops of all arms, though Armenian sources list Tughrul Bey as having 100,000 men at his disposal for the invasion of Armenia. Given that the campaign of 1054 was the major military effort of the Seljuk empire at that time, Tughrul Bey’s assumed total deployed forced is about 50,000.
siege engines In warfare, mechanical and chemical devices used to overwhelm the defences of a fortified place by weakening the physical defences, injuring personnel or driving them into cover so they were unable to fight effectively, or by protecting besieging/attacking troops. The same weapons could in many instances by used by the defence. Volumes have been written on the subject and there is a good deal of information online. Anti-materiel engines were used to attack the physical defences. These included a variety of stone throwing mangonels (which could also hurl clay pots of naphtha), battering rams, a variety of tools for prising out stones, scaling ladders, tunnelling equipment, mantelets to protect besieging troops and wheeled shelters to protect assaulting troops. Movable towers, common in siege warfare to get soldiers over the walls, are not noted in the sources on this siege of Manzikert. The most common anti-personnel weapon was the ballistae, a bold-shooting “crossbows” of reasonable accuracy. Combined with archery and fire, they were employed to sweep defending troops from the walls so they could not effectively defend them. Anti-personnel “chemical” weapons included fire, and toxic smoke. Attempts to cause disease, such as plague, in a besieged city by hurling dead animal carcasses over the walls, have been noted often throughout history, but no sources mention it in relation to the 1054 siege of Manzikert.
semissis See Money.
Shī`ite Muslims Followers of ‘Ali, husband of Fatima, daughter of The Prophet, Mohammed. There was a schism between Shī`ite and Sunnis after the death of Mohammed (632 CE).
Smyrna (Place) A Byzantine city on the Mediterranean coast. Modern Izmir.
solidus See Money.
strategos Byzantine general. See Byzantine Army—Ranks.
Stragna River (Place/battlefield) Now the Great Zab River, it was the scene of Cecaumenus’ and Aaron Vladislav’s decisive defeat of the Seljuk Prince Hasan in 1047.
Sunni Muslims Sunnis respect the memory of the four caliphs: Abubeker, Omar, Othman and Ali, assigning last place to Ali, the husband of Fatima. The split between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims occurred after the death of Mohammed and concerned the question of succession. Ali argued he was the natural heir. Othman reasoned there should be no dynastic succession.
tagmata The collective name for the central Byzantine army of professional troops: roughly equivalent to a modern corps, for a total of about 30,000 men, mostly cavalry. The tagmata might be likened, in organisation and function, to the Household Division of the British Army.
Theme Byzantine regional military districts commanded by a strategos or military governor. Geographically based, there were 47 of them at the death of Basil in 1028, extending from southern Italy to Armenia. Depending on size, wealth and population, they contributed army contingents of from 4,000 to 15,000 before the mid-11th century decline beginning in 1028. In 1054, Vaspurakan had some 5,000 theme troops: the neighbouring themes of Iberia-Armenia and Taron, 15,000 and 3,000 respectively.
tremissis See Money.
vambraces Byzantine strap-on armour for the forearm, to provide protection below the mid-length mail sleeve of the hauberk or byrnie. Usually made of iron strips riveted to two straps. Greaves to protect the shins were of similar construction.
Varangian Guard See Byzantine Army—Tagmata. A tagmata unit of the Byzantine Army from [disputed] 988. Its ranks were filled with, variously, Rus, Danes, and Scandinavians and after the battle of Hastings, Englishmen. It is likely they were mounted infantry, riding to battle and dismounting to fight.
Varangians See Varangian Guard. As a people, Danes and Swedes.
Vaspurakan (Place) Once a separate Armenian kingdom Vaspurakan was peacefully subsumed into the Byzantine Empire, under Basil II, in 1021 CE. A Byzantine military district (theme) of southwest Armenia. The capital is variously given as Van or Manzikert and seems to have switched between the two.
Vikings As a people, Danes and Norwegians.
About the author
Lance Collins grew up in rural Australia and was educated at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He joined the Australian Army in 1979, graduating into the Intelligence Corps. After a variety of army appointments, Collins was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1995 and was appointed as the senior intelligence officer for the International Force East Timor between September 1999 and February 2000. He has a master’s degree in international relations and maintains a lifelong interest in horses, history and literature.
His previous published work is, with Warren Reed, the non-fiction Plunging Point: intelligence failures, cover-ups and consequences, HarperCollins, Sydney 2005.
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A Dowry for the Sultan Page 71