Dorylaeum

Dorylaeum, ancient city of N Phrygia, Asia Minor, now in NW Turkey. It was an important trading city of the Romans but later fell to ruins. At this site on July 1, 1097, the Christians of the First Crusade defeated the Seljuk Turks. Many scholars hold that the modern Eskisehir is near the site, but the question has not been settled.

Dorylaeum was an ancient city in Anatolia. It is now in ruins near the city of Eskişehir, Turkey.

The city existed under the Phrygians but may have been much older. It was a Roman trading post, and a bishopric under the Byzantine Empire. After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 it was taken by the Seljuk Turks.

Dorylaeum was the site of two battles during the crusades. In 1097, during the First Crusade, the crusaders defeated the Seljuks there, in their first major victory. During the Second Crusade it was the site of a major defeat, which effectively ended the German contribution to the crusade.

Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus fortified Dorylaeum in 1175, but the Turks recaptured it in 1176 after the Battle of Myriokephalon.

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