[SunkenCiv]

The Byzantines might have been better off coming to terms with and allying with the incoming Turks, who had picked up on classical Greek and Roman learning while they were still wandering around Central Asia and Iran. They might have made good allies, certainly better allies than enemies. Ah well.

[MUDDOG]

When it comes to what happened to Anatolia, there's also the difference in lifestyles between the Eastern Roman and the Turkish.

The Eastern Romans had well-developed towns and cities in Anatolia, while the Turks were mainly nomadic and pastoral, so that after the Turks took over Anatolia, the towns and cities in the interior declined severely, and central Anatolia become kind of an Asian wasteland. At least that's how I read it.

(Note that I've sworn off the term "Byzantine"!)

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't know if any long-term alliance between the Turks and the Byzantines/Rhomaioi/Greeks/Eastern Romans was possible given the religious difference. The Turks were Muslims and wanted to extend the areas under Muslim rule. The Ottoman state began around 1300 on the frontier between the Islamic world and the Christian world, and attracted zealots who wanted to fight to extend the land under Islamic rule.

How could the Byzantines make allies with people like that?

True, it would have been nicer if instead of fighting they had organized seminars to discuss Homer, Plato, Sophocles, and Vergil.