PROGRESS OF THE SELJUKS. 29

blood and mostly Greek as to langiia<^c. The numerous pro- vincial cities were the centres of civilization. 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 muni- cipal life. Wealth was widely diffused. Given an industrious and intelligent people like the Greeks and the races which liad inhabited Asia Minor within historic times, with a gov- ernment sufHciently strong to secure peaceful occupation, and one which would not interfere to prevent the accumula- tion of wealth, and it is impossible that Asia Minor should not be wealthy. It was against this prosperous portion of the empire, which Attacks upon 'I'lad contributed largely to the wealth of the capital, AsiaViuor. . that Alparslau turned his attention when the border states were no longer able to resist his progress. It is un- necessary to describe how he swept through and through the country, and how the efforts of Eomanos Diogenes were ulti- mately fruitless to arrest his progress. The Strong Lion of the Seljuks devoured many cities and devastated the fairest prov- inces. Cappadocia was laid waste; the inhabitants of its capital, CiBsarea, were massacred, and the great church of St. Basil was stripped of the wealth with which many generations of the devout had endowed it. Mesopotamia, Mitylene, Syria, and Cilicia were plundered. While the emperor, at the licad of his army, was pushing forward towards Akhlat, on Lake Yan, in order to protect the Armenian frontier, a band of the Seljuks passed liim, forced their way through Cappadocia and Lycaonia, and reached Iconium, and, having plundered the latter city, made a hasty retreat with a large quantity of spoil. The career of Alparslan was, however, cut short by assassination in 1073. He was buried at Merv, one of the many districts in Central Asia which, once densely populated, has o-one backwards in the paths of civilization under Turkish rule. Alparslan was succeeded by his son, Malek Shah, in whose seijakian rcigu the powcr of the Seljukian Turks attained its Er greatest height. That power had been steadily in-