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The second reign of Keyhüsrev begins in Konya. The court in Konya exerts its power over Anatolia, and with the Great Seljuk Empire gone, the Roman Sultan takes upon himself the mantle of the sole successor to the inheritance of Seljuk. Court officials arrive from the East in Konya, bringing with them the skill and cultural capital of the more central lands of Islam, and the building works in Konya accelerate. Meanwhile, Keyhüsrev clashes with Theodore Laskris, the Emperor of Nicea, and ultimatel...
The English and the French arrive in the Levant to contest the rule of the Holy Land with the Ayyubid Sultanate. The Third Crusade sees some of the most vicious fighting and brilliant generalship of all of the Crusades, resulting in a stalemate. But though Richard the Lionheart and Saladin part on terms of deep mutual admiration and respect, the results of the Third Crusade are unsatisfying to all sides. In Europe, the Pope declares a new Crusade. But this Fourth Crusade is strapped for cash and...
After being driven from Konya, Keyhüsrev flees to Constantinople. The once and future Roman Sultan bides his time in the New Rome, marrying and fathering a child, while a great fleet sets sail in the West bound for the Queen of Cities...
The first reign of Keyhüsrev begins. But while the young Sultan struggles to hold Western Anatolia, his half-brother Sulayman II seizes the initiative in the East, driving Keyhüsrev from Konya. Sulayman then sets out to invade Georgia and reunify Anatolia... Ambitions whose rewards others will ultimately reap.
In the aftermath of the disaster of the march of the Third Crusade across Anatolia, the Sultanate of Rum falls apart. The elderly Sultan of Rum is forced to wander across Anatolia seeking aid to return to the throne. And we say goodbye to the Limping Lion, and bring to the throne the next Roman Sultan - the Sultan who will come to inaugurate the golden age of the Seljuks of Rum.
The Holy Roman Emperor crosses the Dardanelles into Anatolia expecting to find a friend on the throne in Konya. But while Sultan Kılıç Arslan II desires peace and alliance, the wild tribes and certain of his sons have other ideas...
Saladin consolidates power throughout Syria and northern Iraq, becoming the greatest power in the Muslim world and strangling Outremer. After a crusader provocation, he assembles a great army and marches it into the Levant, ultimately crushing the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin. Jerusalem itself soon falls to the Ayyubid Sultan. And the shocking news of the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem causes fear and guilt to spread across Europe, leading the Third Crusade. Soon, the Holy Roman Emperor, ...
This episode details the aftermath of the Battle of Myriokephalon, where Sultan Kılıç Arslan II consolidates his power in Anatolia by securing eastern territories and eventually Malatya. He adeptly manages rising tensions with Saladin through diplomacy, and skillfully exploits the chaos of the Byzantine succession after Manuel Komnenos's death to expand Seljuk influence in Western Anatolia. However, as the aging Sultan faces escalating tribal unrest and an impending succession crisis with his numerous sons, his decision to partition the Sultanate while still alive ignites internal conflict, leaving the realm fractured and vulnerable to a massive Third Crusade led by Frederick Barbarossa.
With Kılıç Arslan II consolidating his power over Anatolia, Emperor Manuel Komnenos sets out to reverse the verdict of Manzikert. The Imperial Armies move on to the plateau to rebuild Dorylaeum, and expeditionary forces are sent off to northern Anatolia. And a great Roman army is assembled and set on the road to Konya - a road that will, along the way to Konya, take them to an abandoned fortress guarding a steep mountain pass. A fortress named Myriokephalon and a pass named Tzivitzre......
As the Danishmend Beylik falls into crisis, Kılıç Arslan II sets out to conquer Anatolia. But fearful of the growing power of the Sultan of Rum, Nüreddin Zengi, the greatest force in the Muslim world, sets out to oppose him. An alliance is constructed against Konya - an alliance that will stand for so long as Nüreddin lives... And in Constantinople, Emperor Manuel Komnenos watches the events in Anatolia with growing trepidation, and decides to take a gamble on reversing the verdict of Manzikert....
In Anatolia, Kılıç Arslan II rides East to confront Yağıbasan and begin the reconquest of Anatolia. He makes an alliance with the Saltukid Bey İzzeddin, whose beylik has been raiding Georgia since Manzikert. And in Syria, Nureddin Zengi dispatches to Egypt two obscure Kurdish commanders...
Kılıç Arslan II finds him surrounded by enemies on all sides, as the Sultanate of Rum faces an existential war against enemies in the West, the East, the North, and the South. To end the war, the Limping Lion is forced to come to terms with Emperor Manuel Komnenos. And thus, the Sultan of Rum makes a visit to Constantinople.
After the death of Mesud, his son Kılıç Arslan II succeeds him as the next Sultan of Rum. However, the succession of the second Sword Lion to the throne is not bloodless. A series of murders in Konya ultimately kick off a chain of escalating events that spiral further and further out of Kılıç Arslan's control. And the falling dominoes ultimately end with the new sultan facing a truly existential war on all sides...
The aging Mesud organizes his new conquests on the southern marches of Anatolia into a new satrapy run from Elbistan, and sets up his son and favored successor, Kılıç Arslan II, as its ruler. A new power arises in nearby Cilicia as Thoros the Great lays the foundations of the coming Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, prompting the Sultan of Rum and the Roman Emperor to organize joint military campaigns to topple this potential threat. And we say goodbye to Mesud, as the longest-reigning Roman Sultan d...
Mesud returns to Konya triumphant after mauling the Second Crusade, and a new power arises in Syria as Nüreddin Zengi succeeds his father to take over the Zengid Emirate. After the broken Second Crusade meets its ignoble end in front of the walls of Damascus, Mesud and Nüreddin rip apart the remnants of the County of Edessa. And Mesud abandons the quixotic dreams of his father and grandfather to conquer the center of the Muslim world, and instead completes his consolidation of power in Anatolia....
After destroying the German crusading army of King Conrad III, Mesud turns his forces against the French crusaders led by King Louis VII. After an initial loss to the French in the Meander valley, Mesud regroups his forces and faces the French again on the passes of a mountain named Mount Cadmus. There Mesud hopes to avenge his father and earn a place of honor among the Sultans of Rum and the Muslim heroes of the Crusades...
The fall of Edessa to Imad al-Din Zengi sparks the Second Crusade. Two great crusading armies assemble in Western Europe - a German army led by King Conrad III and a French army led by King Louis VII. As the crusading armies converge on Anatolia, seeking passage to the Holy Land, the Emperor of the Romans and the Sultan of Rum join forces to oppose them. The German army decides to march along the route taken by the First Crusaders, and Sultan Mesud seeks redemption on the plains of Dorylaeum......
Following the death of the Danishmend King Muhammad, Mesud is finally the pre-eminent Turkish potentate in Anatolia. With the Sultanate of Rum rejuvenated, he now sets out to conquer. Meanwhile, a new Emperor dons the purple in Constantinople, and goes to war with the new master of Turkish Anatolia. And yet again, an army of invasion begins mustering in the West...
The messengers from the Caliph in Baghdad and Sanjar, the Great Sultan of the East, arrive in Kastamonu to find that Emir Ghazi has died before they could proclaim him as King. Instead, his son Muhammad is granted the title - inevitably leading to conflict between this new King of the North and the Sultan of Rum in Konya. War erupts between and among a shifting web of alliances of Turks, Greeks, Crusaders and Armenians. And Sultan Mesud ultimately emerges as the leading power of Turkish Anatolia...
With Mesud installed on the throne of the Sultanate of Rum in Konya, his father-in-law, the Danishmend Bey Emir Ghazi rises to become the overlord of Turkish Anatolia. Emir Ghazi brings the Danishmend beylik to the zenith of its power, but in doing so clears the board of potential rivals to Mesud and provides stability and security to his vassal in Konya. And as imperial authority in the Western half of the Great Seljuk Empire melts down, the Caliph in Baghdad and the Great Sultan of the East di...
Following the peace treaty signed with Emperor Alexios Komnenos, the Sultan of Rum Şahinşah begins marching back to Konya. But he does not make it far before being confronted by his half brother Mesud, who rides West with Danishmend support. A new Sultan comes to the throne in Konya, but one who owes his throne and his loyalty to the Danishmend Bey Emir Ghazi - just as a new Emperor dons the purple in Constantinople.
Following the death of Kılıç Arslan, the Sultanate of Rum falls into disorder and becomes eclipsed by the other beyliks, in particular the Danishmend Beylik to the east ruled by Emir Ghazi. The Sultanate becomes divided between the sons of the dead Sword Lion - the brothers Mesud and Melik Arap in central Anatolia, the young Tuğrul Arslan in Malatya as a puppet of his mother and new stepfather, and Şahinşah in captivity in Iran. Eventually, Şahinşah returns from the East and faces off against Al...
As the western half of the Great Seljuk Empire continues to collapse, a string of fortuitous events dramatically improves Kılıç Arslan's position. Like his father before him, the Sword Lion decides to take the ultimate gamble, and sets out to the East. And, also like his father before him, he takes with him his young son...
Following the Turkish victory over the Crusade of 1101, Kılıç Arslan's position as the leading Turkish potentate in Anatolia is secured, and the Sultanate of Rum is re-established. But the rebirth of the Sultanate of Rum in Konya and Kılıç Arslan's rise from the ashes cause great tension within the Turkish alliance that won the war, in particular, with Gümüştegin Ghazi, the Silver Prince, the leader of the Danishmend Beylik and the strongest member of the alliance. And conflict and even war soon...
The Sultanate of Rum lies in ruins following the destruction of the First Crusade and the loss of Western Anatolia to the Byzantine Empire. The Danishmend Beylik led by Gümüştegin Ghazi takes up the mantle of the leading Turkish state in Anatolia, and scores a key victory against the Norman Crusaders in Outremer. And yet more crusaders arrive from the West - both threatening the Sword Lion and providing him with an opportunity to restore his reputation and renew his leadership...
In the aftermath of the catastrophic Crusader invasion of Anatolia, while the Turks are in crisis, Emperor Alexios Komnenos launches a reconquest. An army led by John Doukas retakes the Aegean coast and Western Anatolia, an army led by Theodore Gabras retakes the Black Sea coast, and the Emperor himself marches out of Pelakanon and into the center of Anatolia. But the Turks rebound and begin to mobilize a response. And the Emperor stops at Akşehir, then called Philomelion, to consider his option...
Following the fall of İznik, Kılıç Arslan regroups his forces, belatedly calling for aid from across Turkish Anatolia. The Crusaders depart from İznik and begin their march to the Holy Land. Kılıç Arslan springs an ambush near Eskişehir on the Plains of Dorylaeum, leading to disaster yet again. In the aftermath of the great defeat, the Sword Lion is unable to oppose the Crusaders head on, but the war continues as a wide swathe of destruction is cut across Anatolia - and the seeds of a transforme...
The crusading army marches into a completely undefended Anatolia and right up to the walls of İznik, the capital of the Sultanate of Rum. Finally waking up to the danger, Kılıç Arslan makes a deal with the Danishmends and begins racing back West. Kılıç Arslan fights the Crusaders in front of the walls of İznik and the Turks resist. Meanwhile, as one of the greatest defeats in Turkish history unfolds, tensions continue to rise between Constantinople and the Crusading army.
The People's Crusade invades Anatolia, and the chaotic army of undisciplined peasants is easily destroyed by the forces of the Sultanate of Rum under Ilhan Bey as Kılıç Arslan besieges Malatya. But the chaos and ineptitude of the People's Crusade proves to be a boon to both the Byzantine Emperor and even the now-assembling First Crusade. In Constantinople, Emperor Alexios uses the chaos and the ineptitude of the People's Crusade to bind the arriving First Crusaders to him. And supremely overconf...
As Turkish power is entrenched across Anatolia and Kılıç Arslan consolidates the power of the Sultanate of Rum, in Constantinople Emperor Alexios Komnenos calls for aid from the West. The Emperor envisions a relatively large, but still manageable, army of experienced Latin knights of the type that have fought for Byzantium in the past in order to retake Anatolia. But his call for aid coincides with a papal reform movement in Rome seeking to entrench the power of the Papacy, and Pope Urban II use...
