Talk:Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir

Merger proposal
I had created a new page called the Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir before I realised that it already existed under another name. I think it is obvious that the two pages need to be merged. I would suggest that the name 'Hyelion and Leimocheir' should be substituted for the 'Battle of the Meander Valley' (but I would wouldn't I) for two cogent reasons, another battle of the same name exists, which is confusing, and the two fortress names are associated closely with the battle, and are the locality by which the battle was known at the time, in the principal primary source - Choniates' Historia.Urselius (talk) 18:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * User:Urselius: how is this military engagement named in the secondary literature? Is the title that you have chosen, the Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir, based solely on your reading of the primary source history of Niketas Choniates, or can you offer a book or article that also uses the name. As Wikipedia editors, we must be careful to do no original research. Aramgar (talk) 18:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

We are operating in something of an academic lacuna here. There isn't much in the primary sources about the battle, strangely, as it seems to have been a fairly large scale battle. Authors of secondary histories tend to describe it as "a battle that took place in the Meander valley" or "a battle close to the forts of Hyelion and Leimocheir in the Meander valley." The creation of a wiki "Battle" page does not allow for such niceties and demands a "name." The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180 by Birkenmeier describes the battle as being close to Hyelion and Leimocheir (page 196); Magdalino in The Empire of Manuel Komnenos says (page 99) merely, to paraphrase, that a large Turkish force was sent to raid the Meander valley and it was defeated as it crossed the river on its return.

I would argue for the retention of the battle on a separate page in the Wikipedia, because it reflects very cogently that the more important Battle of Myriokephalon was not a great disaster in the material sense (which a lot of sloppy historians have claimed in the past), and that the Byzantine position in Anatolia did not deteriorate as an immediate result of Myriokephalon.

Another argument favouring the Hyelion name is that the Meander valley is a large valley and the name localises the battle more precisely. There is a short description of Hyelion and Leimocheir in "Antiquities of Southern Phrygia and the Border Lands (I)" W. M. Ramsay The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts, Vol. 3, No. 3/4 (Dec., 1887), pp. 344-368. This gives a glimpse of the location's strategic qualities "where a bridge on the great eastern highway crossed the river" - good ambush spot! Urselius (talk) 10:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge the damn thing and include the longer name.Tourskin (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, but it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever - just so you know! ;)   Urselius (talk) 11:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)