Chaos in the Camp

Because he was present in the fortified Byzantine camp, Michael Attaleiates was able to offer a highly emotional personal account of the unfolding disaster, as he experienced it through what he saw and what he heard from the soldiers who fled from the battlefield.1 There is a mixture of feelings in Attaleiates's account; panic and confusion about how the events unfolded, and uncertainty over who to ask for information: “Meanwhile, the flight of the others had led them to cluster outside the camp palisade and all were shout-ing incoherently and running about in disorder; nobody could say what exactly was going on.” Critically for Attaleiates, the fate of the emperor was of utmost importance, hence we read the contradicting reports that he received throughout Friday afternoon, “some claimed that the emperor was firmly resisting with what was left of his army and that he had routed the barbarians. Others said that he had been killed or captured. Everyone had something different to report, claiming victory for each side and then alternately denying it.”

Tthere was the growing awareness of the outcome of the battle, coupled with Atta-leiates's desperate attempts to avert the unfolding disaster by trying to convince some of the retreating soldiers to return to their posts, like in the aftermath of the desertion of some of the Oghuz on Thursday (August 25): “Finally, many of the Kappadokians who were with the emperor, one group after another, began to desert. Whether I myself was trying to stop many of the soldiers from running away and getting them to return to their posts to save us from defeat, I leave it to others to report.”

It was when Attaleiates had finally accepted that everything was lost, and a feeling of sadness and desperation set in that we read his harrowing words about the fate of the emperor and his army. There are reports of the Turks seizing and looting the imperial camp, but the loss of prestige was far harder to bear: