ire and formed the Seljukian kingdoms of
Persia and Syria, were superior to any Byzantine troops that could be
arrayed in southern or central Asia Minor. They constituted indeed the
only compact body of fighting men seen in these regions for some
generations. It found reinforcement from the scattered Turki groups
introduced already, as we have seen, into the country; and even from
native Christians, who, descended from the Iconoclasts of two centuries
before, found the rule of Moslem image-haters more congenial, as it was
certainly more effective, than that of Byzantine emperors. The creed of
the Seljuks was Islam of an Iranian type. Of Incarnationist colour, it
repudiated the dour illiberal spirit of the early Arabian apostles which
latter-day Sunnite orthodoxy has revived. Accordingly its professors,
backed by an effective force and offering security and privilege, quickly
won over the aborigines--Lycaonians, Phrygians, Cappadocians, and
Cilicians--and welded them into a nation, leaving only a few detached
communities here and there to cherish allegiance to Byzantine
Christianity. In the event, the population of quite two-thirds of the
Anatolian peninsula had already identified itself with a ruling Turki
caste before, early in the thirteenth century, fresh Turks appeared on the
scene--those Turks who were to found the Ottoman Empire.

They entered Asia Minor much as the earlier Turcomans had entered it--a
small body of nomadic adventurers, thrown off by the larger body of Turks
settled in Persia to seek new pastures west of the Euphrates. There are
divers legends about the first appearance and establishment of these
particular Turks: but all agree that they were of inconsiderable number--
not above four hundred families at most. Drifting in by way of Armenia,
they pressed gradually westward from Erzerum in hope of finding some
unoccupied country which would prove both element and fertile. Byzantine
influence was then at a very low ebb. With Constantinople itself in Latin
hands, the Greek writ ran only along the north Anatolian coast, ruled from
two separate centres, Isnik (Nicaea) and Trebizond: and the Seljuk kingdom
was run in reality much more vigorous. Though apparently without a rival,
it was subsisting by consent, on the prestige of its past, rather than on
actual power. The moment of its dissolution was approaching, and the
Anatolian peninsula, two-thirds Islamized, but ill-organised and very
loosely knit, was b