The catastrophic Byzantine defeat by the Seljuk Turks near the small town of Manzikert in Asia Minor, where Romanos IV Diogenes led a mercenary-heavy army and was betrayed by commanders and mercenaries alike, resulting in annihilation and capture. Brownworth frames this as the event that dispelled the myth of Byzantine invincibility and triggered the collapse that Alexios later had to arrest — but he emphasizes it need not have become the disaster it did, since the Turks were distracted by a rival Islamic power.
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Episode 14 (17 mentions)
The catastrophic Byzantine defeat by the Seljuk Turks near the small town of Manzikert in Asia Minor, where Romanos IV Diogenes led a mercenary-heavy army and was betrayed by commanders and mercenaries alike, resulting in annihilation and capture. Brownworth frames this as the event that dispelled the myth of Byzantine invincibility and triggered the collapse that Alexios later had to arrest — but he emphasizes it need not have become the disaster it did, since the Turks were distracted by a rival Islamic power.
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