Romanus, husband of the Greek Empress Eudocia took the field against them, and driving them back to the Euphrates, laid siege to the fortress of Manzikert or Malasgerd in Armenia midway between modern Erzeroum and Van. It was on the plain of Manzikert in 1071 after the capture of the fortress, that the East gained one of its greatest triumphs over the West. The Seljuk Sultan and the Roman Emperor met face to face. Romanus rejected in haughty pride the overtures of the Sultan that might have secured his retreat, perhaps peace--and prepared for battle. The Sultan with his own hands tied up the flowing tail of his horse, exchanged his bow and arrows for a mace and scimitar, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be the place of his burial. The Sultan himself had cast away his missile weapons, but his hopes of victory were in the arrows of his cavalry whose squadrons were loosely placed in the form of a crescent. Romanus led his army in a single and solid phalanx and pressed with vigor the artful and yielding resistance of the barbarians. Thus the greater part of a hot summer's day was spent in fruitless combat until fatigue compelled him to sound a return to camp. This was the fatal moment. The Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on the retreating army throwing them into confusion. The horns of the crescent closed in upon the rear of the Greeks. The destruction of the army was complete, the booty immense. Nobly did the Emperor with desperate courage maintain the fight till the close of the day. The imperial station was left naked on all sides to the victorious Turks. His body guard fell about him--his horse was slain and he himself was wounded, yet he stood as a lion at bay. He was captured, despoiled of his jewelled robes, bound and guarded all night on the field of the dead. In the morning the successor of Constantine in plebian habit was led into the presence of the Sultan and commanded to kiss the ground at the feet of the Lord of Asia. Reluctantly he obeyed, and Alp Arslan, starting from his throne, is said to have planted his foot on the neck of the Roman Emperor. No captive was ever more nobly treated than Romanus Diogenes; but no captivity ever wrought more lasting woe. Three years later the Seljuk was the recognized Lord of Asia Minor, and as such ventured to call himself the Lord of Rome. Following the defeat of the Romans the Turks marched into Syria and reduced Damascus by famine and the sword. Other cities in Palestine yielded until the victorious army passing southward stood on the banks of the Nile. The city of Cairo in desperate battle drove back the armies of the Sultan from the confines of Egypt; but in their retreat Jerusalem was conquered and the house of Seljuk held the city for some twenty years.