Battle of Seleucia

The **Battle of Seleucia** (31 July 1285) was the most decisive engagement of the Great Latin War, fought between the Byzantines and the Latin Empire on the banks of the Saleph river, next to the Byzantine-occupied Armenian town of Seleucia. The battle was a decisive victory for the Byzantines, who inflicted heavy casualties on the Latin army and eventually led to its dissolution, opening the Latin Empire to Byzantine invasion. Remarkably, the Battle of Seleucia also marks the last death of a Byzantine emperor in battle, with the death of emperor Skantarios Laskaris.

## Prelude

The Byzantine and the Latin Empires entered a state of war in 1282, following the imperial coronation and Papal investment of Bohemond II of Syria and Armenia as Emperor of the East. Bohemond dreamed of a strong and independent Crusader state in the Levant, following the model of Alexander the Great. The Byzantines, on the other hand, saw Bohemond's imperial elevation as a breach of vassalage and a challenge to Byzantine power.

The Byzantines, directly led by their emperor Skantarios Laskaris, invaded the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which was held by Bohemond, with the support of most of the Armenian nobility. The Byzantine advance was only stopped at the Battle of Anamur, where Bohemond dealt Skantarios a harsh, but far from decisive defeat. Bohemond marched against the retreating Byzantine army, but was instead defeated at the Battle of Lake Karallis. Following Bohemond's defeat, the Byzantine army advanced as far as the town of Seleucia, where a stalemate developed throughout 1284.

On the eve before the battle, an assassination attempt was made on Emperor Skantarios. Theodora of Antioch records that Prince Leo, who had taken command of the army following Bohemond's loss of his army at Lake Karallis, sent his half-brothers, illegitimate sons of Bohemond, to make an assassination attempt on the Byzantine emperor. Other sources name Bohemond himself as the instigator of the plot. Skantarios had them publically castrated, blinded and wheeled before carrying their heads before his army into battle.

## The Battle

Battle was joined in the early hours of July 31st, 1285, when the Latins under Prince Leo finally decided to make their move. It is recorded that Leo knew he was running out of time, because of a series of defeats imposed by Osman of Nicaea on his Mongol allies in Anatolia and because of the Byzantine blockade of the Levant, which was strangling Levantine trade and the Latin Empire's tariff income. Furthermore, he was aware that the Byzantines could allocate more funds to the war than Bohemond could, with each passing day counting as a Byzantine victory and a Latin defeat. Therefore, Leo made the decision to cross the Saleph river and offer battle to the Byzantines, hoping to catch them off guard in early dawn.

Leo placed the knights of the Templar Order in the right flank, the Syrians, Egyptians and Franks in the center and the Armenians and Turks in the left. His reserve was composed of his Mongol allies from the Purple Horde and his own elite light cavalry force, the Deerslayers. Shortly after battle was joined along the river, the unpaid Turkish mercenaries deserted the Latin army, while the Armenians switched sides, causing Leo's left to rapidly dissolve and allowing the Byzantines a safe crossing of the river to engage in a melee with Leo's center.

   Seeking to salvage the battle, Leo brought his reserve into the fray, repeatedly charging at the disciplined and unrelenting Byzantine line. On the other side, Skantarios Laskaris had joined the melee himself. Pachymeres writes that the young emperor had wished to prove himself in combat, after refusing to engage the enemy during the one-year stalemate at Seleucia. The Latin cavalry's repeated charges weakened the Byzantine line enough for the Mongols to employ their secret artillery, the hwacha, which cut a bloody path through the Byzantines and the emperor's elite guard and left them disoriented long enough for the Mongols and the Deerslayers to charge through the broken lines. In the brutal melee that followed, Skantarios Laskaris, Basil Melissenos and several other Byzantine aristocrats and commanders were slain by the Mongol cavalry.

Despite the death of Skantarios and several of his commanders, the young general Romanos Melissenos , who had been given command over the Byzantine left before the battle, was able to defeat the Latin right in time to take overall control of the Byzantine army. Fighting with increased zeal to avenge their Emperor's death, the Byzantines routed the Latin army, and Leo was forced to withdraw from the battlefield and retreat the battered remnants of his host to Sis.

## Aftermath

Following the Latin defeat at Seleucia, the Armenian nobility that had remained loyal to the Latin Empire rose in rebellion, laying open their gates to the advancing Byzantine army, which had reached Tarsus and Manistra before the onset of winter. The dissolution of Bohemond's army forced the Latin Emperor to negotiate a highly unfavorable peace agreement with the Byzantines, resulting in the Peace of Caesarea. In the long term, the Battle of Seleucia condemned the Latin Outremer to disappearance, both because the Peace of Caesarea left them severely weakened and because the renewal of their alliance with the Byzantines proved to be impossible.

For the Byzantines, the Battle of Seleucia stood as a tragedy of unseen proportions. Pachymeres writes that "the flower of the Roman youth was lost on the Calycandus", referring to the deaths of Skantarios Laskaris and several young noblemen who had composed his personal guard (the *Archontopoulai*, i.e. the "sons of the princes", sons of the principal Byzantine aristocrats who had been recruited to form the imperial personal guard). Furthermore, the Battle of Seleucia directly led to the rise of the Melissenid dynasty to the Byzantine throne, first with Romanos V and then with Romanos VI, the general who had led the Byzantines to victory following Skantarios' death. Ultimately, all ramifications of the Melissenid rule can be traced to the Battle of Seleucia.

The Battle of Seleucia also represented a turning point in the Byzantine psyche throughout the remainder of the thirteenth and the first decade of the fourteenth century. Skantarios Laskaris had been the first emperor to die in battle since Nikephoros I in 811, almost five centuries before. His death at the hand of the Mongols reignited the Byzantine siege mentality, which been gradually decreasing since the last Mongol invasion in the early 1250's, and consequently brought the Byzantines and Osman of Nicaea closer together in their common struggle against the Purple Horde. Furthermore, the role the Latin Catholics played in Skantarios' death would cause relations to sour and implode between the Byzantine Empire and the Latin West, ultimately leading to Byzantine opposition to Crusades and the disappearance of the Latin Outremer as soon as 1295. Lastly, the Battle of Seleucia left a lasting impression on Romanos VI, whose imperial policy favored cordial relations with the Mamluks and cold distance from the Latin West.