Battle of Levounion, 1091

Battle of Levounion

With the help of a Cuman army, Alexios I annihilated the Pechenegs, who for four years had ravaged Thrace and threatened Constantinople in alliance with the Turkish emir of Smyrna. It was the first great victory of the Komnenian recovery: the Pecheneg threat was removed for a generation, and Anna Komnene wrote that a whole people perished in a single day.

Date

29 April 1091exact dateDate in the Julian calendar

Place

Mount Levounion near Ainos, at the mouth of the Hebrosapproximate locationtoday: near Enez, Edirne Province, Turkey · Balkans and Anatolia

Participants

Alexios I Komnenos, Byzantine Empire, Cumans, Pechenegs

Threads

Balkans and Anatolia (11th–12th c.)

Also known as

Battle of Lebounion; Levunium; Битва у Левуниона; Togortak; Maniak

In 1087 a great Pecheneg host invaded the Balkans from the steppes of the north-western Black Sea region; Alexios, defeated by them near Dorostolon, had to buy a truce. In the winter of 1090–1091 they encamped not far from Constantinople, while Tzachas, emir of Smyrna, built a fleet and sought to join them in besieging the capital. Alexios turned to another nomad people, the Cumans, who had recently come into the steppes north of the Black Sea. In April 1091 a Cuman army — "about forty thousand strong", according to Anna Komnene — joined him, led by chieftains whom she calls Togortak and Maniak: Tugorkan and Bonyak of the Rus' chronicles.

On Monday 28 April the allies reached the Pecheneg camp at Levounion near the mouth of the Hebros, and the next morning they attacked. The Pechenegs, who had their families with them in a wagon camp, were encircled and slaughtered; during the night, Anna writes, the soldiers killed nearly all the prisoners, and the Byzantines made up a mocking song: "just by one day the Scythians missed seeing the month of May". Having taken all the booty and fearing a night attack by the emperor, many of the Cumans left by night for the Danube, and Alexios sent the payment he had promised after them. Some of the surviving Pechenegs were taken into imperial service. Levounion removed the Pecheneg threat for a generation and freed Alexios to turn to Asia Minor.

Connections

Part of

Related events

The Pechenegs first come to the Rus’ land915 · Eastern Europethe Pechenegs, whose first coming to the Rus' land the Primary Chronicle records under 915, were broken as a power at Levounion

The Cumans reach the Black Sea steppes and the borders of Rus’between 1054 and 1055 – between 1061 and 1062 · Eastern Europethe Cuman khans Tugorkan and Boniak of the Rus’ chronicles — Anna Komnene’s Togortak and Maniak — fought for Alexios I against the Pechenegs at Levounion (1091)

Same participants

Battle of Levounion

Connections

Part of

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Same participants

Meanwhile in the world

Western and Central Europe

Middle East and Egypt

Africa

Southeast Asia and Oceania

North America

Latin America

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Sources