For an empire that was surrounded by enemies the downfall of Byzantium became a greater probability and in 1204 the city of Constantinople had been sacked by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade bringing the Empire into another era of chaos.

The Seljuqs of Rum, under a new Sultan, Kaykhusraw, exploit this event and attack the port of Antalya in 1207, capturing it from the weakened splinter Empire of Nicaea.

The tide turns, however, in 1211 when the Sultan himself is killed in single combat by the Emperor of Nicaea at the Battle of Antioch on the Meander and from this point on the empire’s eastern frontier is more or less stabilized.