As a doctoral student, I was interested in the raids of the Norman dukes of southern Italy on the Byzantine provinces in the Balkans between 1081 and 1108. Foremost, I conducted a study of the military organisation of the Norman and Byzantine states in that period, their overall strategies and their military tactics on the battlefield. In that time, I had the chance to venture into the world of warfare in the eastern Mediterranean, from Italy and the Balkans to Asia Minor and the Middle East, examining the military organisation, tactics and strategies of the Byzantines and the Seljuk Turks, the Arabs of Egypt and the Crusaders. It was while studying battles in the same geographical area that I could identify the numerous tactical innovations and adaptations between different armies in their battle tactics after a pitched battle or a skirmish with the enemy. Therefore, a key question was quickly raised: can it be said that the general who shows the most willingness to adapt to the tactics of the enemy has significantly better chances of winning the battle and, perhaps, even the war? Thus, the main aim of the present study is to examine in detail the way each state adapted to the strategies and tactics of its enemies in a specific operational theatre: the region that is bordered by Antioch and Aleppo to the south, Taron and Vaspourakan around Lake Van to the east, and the mountain ranges of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus to the north and west, between the second and third quarters of the tenth century.

The period that I have chosen to study should be considered within the political context of the Byzantine wars of expansion that dominated the eastern frontiers of the empire for the best part of the tenth century. Since 927–8, when the threat from the Bulgarian tsar Symeon had disappeared, the empire's foreign policy had already shifted to the preservation of a pro-Byzantine Armenia and the establishment of control over the strategic Anatolia. cantons of Taron and Vaspourakan, around Lake Van – an area that controlled the invasion routes into Byzantine Chaldea through north-eastern Anatolia.