"So far as one can judge from the evidence of modern and mediæval travellers and of Byzantine historians, Asia Minor, at the time of the Seljuk invasion of Alparslan, was thickly occupied by races who were industrious, intelligent, and civilised—races with a certain mixture of Greek blood and mostly Greek as to language. The numerous provincial cities were the centres of civilisation. Their walls and amphitheatres, their works of art, aqueducts, and other public buildings, give evidence of a long-continued sense of security, of peaceful and progressive peoples, and of a healthy municipal life. Wealth was widely diffused. … It was against this prosperous portion of the Empire, which had contributed largely to the wealth of the capital, that Alparslan turned his attention when the border states were no longer able to resist his progress. … The Strong Lion of the Seljuks devoured many cities and devastated the fairest provinces. Cappadocia was laid waste; the inhabitants of its capital, Cæsarea, were massacred. … Mesopotamia, Mitylene, Syria, and Cilicia were plundered." _E. Pears, The Fall of Constantinople, chapter 2._ The career of Alp Arslan in Asia Minor was opposed by a courageous and vigorous emperor, Romanus Diogenes, or Romanus IV.; but Romanus exposed himself and his army rashly to the chances of a battle at Manzikert, A. D. 1071, on which all was staked. He lost; his army was routed, and he, himself, was taken prisoner. He was released on signing a treaty of peace and agreeing to pay a heavy ransom; but a revolution at Constantinople meantime had robbed him of the throne, deprived him of the means of fulfilling his engagements, and brought upon him, soon afterwards, a cruel end. Alp Arslan, provoked by the repudiation of the treaty, revenged himself on the ill-fated country which lay at his mercy. "Every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance when compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race, by the ravages of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor." _G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, book 3, chapter 1, section 2._ TURKS: A. D. 1073-1092. The empire of Malek Shah and its subordinate Sultans.