The Byzantines beat the Seljuk Turks at Philomelion, 1116 (MED0115)

Byzantine cataphracts at Philomelion, 1116

Forty-five years after Manzikert the Byzantine Empire had still not recovered central Anatolia. Alexios I Komnenos then led a campaign with an objective other than conquest: to reach the Christian populations left under the Sultanate of Rum and bring them back inside imperial territory. Philomelion was the engagement that made that evacuation possible.

What a cataphract was

The term denotes a rider armoured from head to foot, often on a horse that was itself barded. In the Byzantine army this was the shock element: lamellar klibanion, helmet with aventail, defences for arms and legs, lance and mace. Such a formation was extremely expensive to equip and maintain, which is precisely why its use was regulated in detail by the military manuals, prescribing the wedge and the exact moment of impact.

The hollow square

Facing the Seljuks demanded specific countermeasures. Turkish cavalry fought with the bow from horseback, avoiding close combat and wearing down opponents with the feigned retreat — the very tactic that had destroyed the imperial army at Manzikert. Alexios answered with the parataxis, a compact mobile defensive formation enclosing non-combatants and evacuated civilians at its centre, infantry and archers along the sides, and the cataphracts held ready to charge only when the enemy came too close.

A battle won by not pursuing

The Seljuks attacked repeatedly and were repelled each time, without the Byzantine army breaking formation to chase them — which was exactly what the Turks were trying to provoke. It was a victory of discipline rather than manoeuvre, and it allowed thousands of people to be brought back into imperial territory.

The last Komnenian age

Giuseppe Rava depicts this heavy cavalry in its late phase, when the empire had learned to fight an enemy that would not stand still. The Komnenian system held for a century, until defeat at Myriokephalon in 1176 and then 1204.