Duchy of Antioch
The Duchy or Ducate of Antioch was a Byzantine territory ruled by a doux also known as a katepano appointed by and under the authority of the emperor. It was founded in 970 after the reconquest of Antioch by imperial troops and existed until December 1084, when Suleiman ibn Qutalmish of the Sultanate of Rum conquered the ducal capital. After the Treaty of Devol in 1108, the Crusader prince of Antioch was recognised by the emperor as the doux of Antioch, an agreement which continued intermittently until shortly after the death of Manuel I Komnenos in 1180.
History
Background
The Hellenistic city of Antioch and the surrounding regions of Cilicia and Syria became provinces of the Roman Republic in 64 BC after the campaigns of Pompey the Great. Because of the strategic position of the city near the Persian border and its prestige as the former capital of the Seleucid Empire, Antioch served as an informal eastern capital of the Republic and later Empire. Under the Tetrarchy, the provinces became part of the Diocese of the East under the command of a vicarius stationed in Antioch. In 535, the emperor Justinian I abolished the Diocese and the region was directly integrated into the Praetorian Prefecture of the East, commanded from Constantinople.In 634 the Rashidun Caliphate launched an invasion of the Byzantine empire and by 638 the entirety of the former diocese had been conquered. Antioch and Cilicia then became part of the frontier zone between the Caliphate and the Empire. In order to effectively deal with the Caliphate the Praetorian Prefecture of the East, now all that was left of the empire outside of Italy, was abolished and the thematic system established in its stead.
Conquest
After the Anarchy at Samarra, the Abbasid Caliphate began to lose effective control of many of the emirates, which became only nominally subordinate to the Caliph but acted virtually independently. In 944, the Hamdanid warlord Sayf al-Dawla established himself as emir of Aleppo, controlling Antioch and the rest of the Byzantine frontier zone. For the next two decades, al-Dawla and the Phokades campaigned against one another. Eventually, the Byzantines prevailed and in 965 Cilicia was conquered by the emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, and was divided into minor themes including Tarsus, Mopsuestia, Padyandus and Anabarza.After Sayf al-Dawla's death in 967, the Hamdanid position almost completely collapsed from Byzantine pressure. In October 969 after 363 years of Muslim rule, Antioch was conquered by Michael Bourtzes, the strategos of the neighbouring theme of Mauron Oros. Because Bourtzes had disobeyed the emeprors' orders, Bourtzes was recalled to Constantinople and Antioch was placed under the authority of Eustathios Maleinos, a cousin of the emperor and strategos of Lykandos, whilst the rest of the imperial army advanced towards Aleppo. Later that year, Aleppo was taken and the Treaty of Safar was signed, establishing Byzantine control over the north-Syrian coast and Aleppo as a protectorate of the empire.
Creation and Expansion
Whilst the treaty was being negotiated, Phokas was assassinated by his nephew and successor John I Tzimiskes and aided by a disgruntled Bourtzes. As a reward, Bourtzes was appointed the first doux of Antioch later in 970, which had jurisdiction over all the minor themes established in Cilicia, and Syria to the south. Among them was the Theme of Tarsus, with a cavalry staff, as well as others that likely also had armies composed of horsemen. In 974 and 975, Tzimiskes campaigned in person against the Fatimids, creating more minor themes from newly conquered cities which were incorporated into the ducate. For a time, the ducate stretched as far south as the theme of Balaneos in the Golan Heights.The following year, Tzimiskes died and the new emperor Basil II again made Michael Bourtzes, the conqueror of Antioch, doux. He held office for only a few months until he allied himself with Bardas Skleros who was in revolt against Basil's authority. In 989, Bourtzes was again appointed as doux, a position he held until 995 when he was removed by continuous defeats in the face of the Arab onslaught, especially at the Battle of the Orontes. The next duke was Damian Dalassenos, who held office until July 19, 998, when he was defeated and killed by Fatimid troops at the Battle of Apamea.
Upon Damian's death, Nikephoros Ouranos, a general who made a career against the First Bulgarian Empire, was appointed to the post of duke of Antioch. Alongside Basil, he carried out a series of military expeditions aimed at appeasing the province, while also assisting in the expansion of the imperial borders toward the Kingdom of the Iberians. As an imperial representative, he acquired full powers of command of the troops stationed on the eastern frontier and, according to a seal of his, was appointed as "lord of the East."
Decline
After a succession of little-known dukes, the next prominent incumbent was Constantine Dalassenos, son of Damian Dalassenos, who held the post between 1024 and 1025. In 1055, Katakalon Kekaumenos was appointed to the position, and later Nikephoritzes, the future minister of Emperor Michael VII Dukas. In 1071, after the decisive Battle of Manzikert against the Seljuk Turks, Joseph Tarchaneiotes was appointed as the new local governor. For the next seven years, Antioch would experience a series of popular uprisings, only subdued by Isaac Komnenos.Parallel to the troubles in Antioch, Philaretos Brachamios revolted against the imperial authority and assumed the title of emperor upon the death of Romanos IV Diogenes, who had been defeated at Manzikert by the Seljukids. In 1078, Nikephoros III Botaneiates, ceded the office of duke to Philaretos in exchange for giving up the imperial claim. He was the last duke of Antioch, holding the post until December 1084, when Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, from the Sultanate of Rum, conquered the ducal capital.
Crusader Ducate
The First Crusade
In 1095, the emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested aid from the Latin West in reconquering Anatolia from the Sultanate of Rum. This led to the formation of the First Crusade, whose leaders initially promised to handover conquered territories to Alexios. However, distrust of the emperor at the siege of Antioch lead to the conquest of the city by Bohemond of Hauteville, who refused to hand over the city, arguing that Alexios' supposed betrayal at the siege had made the crusader oaths invalid. The other crusaders reluctantly accepted Bohemond's rule over Antioch and over the next decade Bohemond and his nephew Tancred campaigned against both Byzantines and Seljuks in Cilicia and Syria, greatly expanding their domain.Alexios refused to accept Bohemond as ruler of an independent Antioch, as he viewed Bohemond as breaking his oath by not handing over the lands which were formerly part of the ducate. In 1107 Bohemond attempted a large-scale invasion of the empire but his failure of the Siege of Dyrrhachium forced Bohemond to come to terms with the emperor.
Treaty of Devol (1108)
In the resulting Treaty of Devol Bohemond became a vassal of Alexios and was granted the honorary title of Sebastos. Alexios formally recognised Bohemond's possession of Antioch by appointing him nonhereditary doux of Antioch and Edessa. The treaty divided the former ducate into three: Bohemond retained the core lands around Antioch, whilst Cilica in the north and Laodicea in the south were to become their own ducates under direct imperial control. As compensation, Bohemond was granted lands in eastern Syria and Mesopotamia currently outside of imperial and crusader control.Bohemond promised in the treaty that he would ensure Tancred also agreed to the terms, even by force if necessary. Bohemond and Alexios' plan was that upon Bohemond's death the ducate of Antioch would revert to the empire and Edessa would remain under Tancred. However, Bohemond never returned to Antioch to properly implement the treaty, dying in Italy in 1111. Tancred, expelled from Edessa in 1109, refused to accept the treaty as he would be left landless without Antioch. Alexios was unable to get Tancred to accept the treaty by force before Tancred's death in 1112, and the emperor's own death in 1118 left the status of the ducate an open question.
John Komnenos
At Devol, Bohemond had pleged allegiance not just to Alexios but also his son and co-emperor John II Komnenos, who now succeeded his father as senior emperor. Early on his reign, John appears to have conceived a plan for inheriting the ducate through a marriage alliance. In 1118/1119, the emperor proposed a marriage between a daughter of the regent of Antioch, Roger of Salerno and his son and co-emperor Alexios. However, the death of Roger in 1119 and the imprisonment of his successor Baldwin II of Jerusalem in 1123 meant the marriage never took place.After Bohemond's son Bohemond II of Antioch died in 1130 leaving the ducate to his infant daughter Constance of Antioch, negotiations again resumed this time for marriage between his youngest son the sebastokrator Manuel and Constance. This was spurred on by John's plan to divide the empire amongst his four sons, with Manuel ruling the lands of the original ducate as well as Cyprus and Antalya. Ultimately, John's plans were frustrated and Constance instead married Raymond of Poitiers in 1336.
The following year John campaigned against the Armenian Kingdom Cilicia who had entered into an anti-imperial alliance with Raymond. After re-establishing control over Cilicia, John moved south, permanently annexing the Antochian lands north of the Syrian Gates. Finally, Antioch was put under imperial blockade. Raymond was eventually pressured to meet John in person and a new agreement was made re-asserting Byzantine vassalage over Antioch. Raymond promised to cede the ducate to John upon the planned conquest of Aleppo and surrounding cities which in turn would be ruled by Raymond. In 1118, John campaigned with Raymond in Syria in order to fulfill the treaty by conquering the territories promised to Raymond. Forts and minor cities were captured, with Atarib and Kafartab granted to the principality, however Aleppo could not be taken so Raymond was not obliged to hand over Antioch to the emperor.
In 1142, Raymond requested imperial aid against Imad al-Din Zengi in Aleppo and John obliged, seeing a campaign as another opportunity for acquiring the ducate. He arrived in the region in Autumn and demanded Raymond hand over Antioch in order to secure the conquest of Aleppo for Raymond, but the Antiochians refused. As it was too late in the year for a campaign against either Antioch or Aleppo, John was forced to accept this temporary refusal until the next year, however the emperor died in April 1143.