Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/662

Rh 636 S E L J U K S Kerman after harassing Sinjar's dominions. Afterwards the shahs of KMrizm took this province. 1 The Seljukian dynasty of Syria came to an end after three generations, and its later history is interwoven with that of the crusaders. The first prince was Tutush, men- tioned above, who perished, after a reign of continuous fighting, in battle against Barkiydrok near Rai (1095). Of his two sons, the elder, Ridhwdn, established himself at Aleppo (died 1113); the younger, Dukak, took possession of Damascus, and died in 1103. The sons of the former, Alp Arslan and Sultan Shah, reigned a short time nomi- nally, though the real power was exercised by Lulu till 1 1 17. We cannot, however, enter here into the very complicated history of these two cities, which changed their masters almost every year till the time of Zengi and Niir ed-din. After the great victory of Alp Arslan in which the Greek emperor was taken prisoner (1071), Asia Minor lay open to the inroads of the Turks. Hence it was easy for Sulaiman, the son of Kutulmish, 2 the son of Arslan Plgu (Israil), to penetrate as far as the Hellespont, the more so as after the captivity of Romanus, two rivals, Nicephorus Bryennius in Asia and another Nicephorus named Botoniates in Europe, disputed the throne with one another. The former ap- pealed to Sulaiman for assistance, and was by his aid brought to Constantinople and seated on the imperial throne. But the possession of Asia Minor was insecure to the Seljuks as long as the important city of Antioch belonged to the Greeks, so that we may date the real foundation of this Seljulj: empire from the taking of that city by the treason of its commander Philaretus in 1084, who afterwards became a vassal of the Seljuks. The con- quest involved Sulaiman in war with the neighbouring Mohammedan princes, and he met his death soon after- wards (1086), near Shaizar, in a battle against Tutush. Owing to these family discords the decision of Malik Shah was necessary to settle the affairs of Asia Minor and Syria ; he kept the sons of Sulaiman in captivity, and committed the war against the unbelieving Greeks to his generals Bursuk (Upwrovx) and Buzan (IIovavos). Barki- yarok, however, on his accession (1092), allowed Kilig Arslan, the son of Sulaiman, to return to the dominions of his father. Acknowledged by the Turkish emirs of Asia Minor, he took up his residence in Nicsea, and defeated the first bands of crusaders under Walter the Penniless and others (1096) ; but, on the arrival of Godfrey of Bouillon and his companions, he was prudent enough to leave his capital in order to attack them as they were besieging Nicaea. He suffered, however, two defeats in the vicinity, and Nicaea surrendered on 23d June 1097. As the cru- saders marched by way of Dorylaeum and Iconium towards Antioch, the Greeks subdued the Turkish emirs resid- ing at Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Lampes, and Polybotus ; 3 and Kilig Arsldn, with his Turks, retired to the north-eastern parts of Asia Minor, to act with the Turkish emirs of Sivas (Sebaste), known under the name of the Danishmand. The history of the dynasty of the Danishmand is still very ob- scure, notwithstanding the efforts of Mordtmann, Schlumberger, Karabacek, Sallet, and others to fix some chronological details, and it is almost impossible to harmonize the different statements of the Armenian, Syriac, Greek, and Western chronicles with those of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. The coins are few in number, very difficult to decipher, and often without date. The founder of the dynasty was a certain Tailu, who is said to have been a schoolmaster (danishmand), probably because he understood Arabic and Persian. His descendants, therefore, took the style of " Ibn Danishmand," often without their own name. They took posses- 1 An outline of the history of this branch of the Seljuks is given in Z.D.M.G., 1885, pp. 362-401. 2 This prince rebelled against Alp Arslan in 1064, and was found dead after a battle. 3 The Turkmans who dwelt in these western parts of Asia Minor, which were never regained by the Seljuks, were called Utch (Outsiders). sion of Sivas, Tok;it, Xicsur, Ablastan, Malatieh, probably after the death of Sulaiman, though they may have established them- selves in one or more of these cities much earlier, perhaps in 1071, after the defeat of Romanus Diogenes. During the first crusade the reigning prince was Kumushtegin (Ahmed Ghazi), who defeated the Franks and took prisoner the prince of Antioch, Bohemond, afterwards ransomed. He died probably in 1106, and was succeeded by his son Mohammed (d. 1143), after whom reigned Jaghi Basan ; but it is very probable that other members of the same dynasty reigned at the same time in the cities already named, and in sorno others, &</., KastamunL Afterwards there arose a natural rivalry between the Seljuks and the Danishmand, which ended with the ex- tinction of the latter about 1175. Kilig Arslan took possession of Mosul in 1 107, and declared himself independ- ent of the Seljuks of 'Irak ; but in the same year he was drowned in the Chaboras through the treachery of his own emirs, and the dynasty seemed again destined to decay, as his sons were in the power of his enemies. The sultan Mohammed, however, set at liberty his eldest son Malik Shah, who reigned for some time, until he was treacher- ously murdered (it' is not quite certain by whom), being succeeded by his brother Mas'ud, who established himself at Konieh (Iconium), from that time the residence of the Seljuks of Rum. During his reign he died in 1155 the Greek emperors undertook various expeditions in Asia Minor and Armenia ; but the Seljuk was cunning enough to profess himself their ally and to direct them against his own enemies. Nevertheless the Seljukian dominion was petty and unimportant and did not rise to significance till his son and successor, Kilig ArslAn II., had subdued the Danishmands and appropriated their possessions, though he thereby risked the wrath of the powerful atabek of Syria, Nur ed-din, and afterwards that of the still more powerful Saladin. But as the sultan grew old his numerous sons, who held each the command of a city of the empire, embittered his old age by their mutual rivalry, and the eldest, Kotb ed-din, tyrannized over his father in his own capital, exactly at the time that Frederick I. (Barbarossa) entered his dominions on his way to the Holy Sepulchre (1190). Konieh itself was taken and the sultan forced to provide guides and provisions for the crusaders. Kilig Arslan lived two years longer, finally under the protection of his youngest son, Kaikhosrau, who held the capital after him (till 1199) until his elder brother, Rokn ed-din Sulaiman, after having vanquished his other brothers, ascended the throne and obliged Kaikhosrau to seek refuge at the Greek emperor's court. This valiant prince saved the empire from destruction and conquered Erzerum, which had been ruled during a considerable time by a separate dynasty, and was now given in fief to his brother, Mughit ed-din Toghrul Shah. But, marching thence against the Georgians, Sulaiman 's troops suffered a terrible defeat ; after this Sulaiman set out to subdue his brother Mas'ud Shah, at Angora, who was finally taken prisoner and treacherously murdered. This crime is regarded by Orien- tal authors as the reason of the premature death of the sultan (in 1204); but it is more probable that he was murdered because he displeased the Mohammedan clergy, who accused him of atheism. His son, Kilig Arslan III., was soon deposed by Kaikhosrau (who returned), assisted by the Greek Maurozomes, whose daughter he had married in exile. He ascended the throne the same year in which the Latin empire was established in Constantinople, a cir- cumstance highly favourable to the Turks, who were the natural allies of the Greeks (Theodore Lascaris) and the enemies of the crusaders and their allies, the Armenians. Kaikhosrau, therefore, took in 1207 from the Italian Aldobrandini the important harbour of Attalia (Adalia) ; but his conquests in this direction were put an end to by his attack upon Lascaris, for in the battle that ensued he perished in single combat with his royal antagonist (1211).