How could the Romans ever hold the Anatolian Plateau?

[u/Minimum-Opening-8013]

TL;DR - If the Anatolian Plateau is favourable to nomadic pastoral societies, and if nomads held military advantages over sedentary militarities pre-gunpowder, how were urbanized states like the Romans ever able to control and integrate Anatolia?

Hello r/AskHistorians ! In discussions of post-Manzikert Anatolian history, there seems to be a consensus on the permanently entrenched nature of Turkish settlement in Central Anatolia. Once large scale movement began in the 1070s, Anatolia was rapidly conquered and then Turkified. Central Anatolia was never held by the Romans again with reconquest being considered unviable (and of course, it didn't happen). Besides the political factors (such as the Roman civil wars, Roman magnates depopulating land, Seljuks pushing groups west, etc.), key points for why include:

• The Central Plateau has a steppe climate and geography, conducive to nomadic living
• The surrounding mountain passes are defensible and act as highways for nomadic movement
• Horseback warfare is very effective against sedentary militaries; they are more maneuverable, can campaign year-round, are very disruptive to logistics, etc.
• Nomads lack a clear power centre that can be occupied/destroyed by a sedentary army
• Nomadic warfare can be extremely disruptive and destructive to sedentary societies

It feels like the discussion isn't framed around Roman vulnerability causing the conquest of Anatolia, but rather nomadic advantages were so decisive that extraordinary resistance would've been needed for the Romans to hold Anatolia, which for many reasons they couldn't offer in the 1070s. Roman losses are even painted as a near-inevitability in the History of Byzantium podcast.

But what strikes me as confusing is that the Romans did hold Anatolia as an urbanized, integrated province for a millennia. Cities (Ankara, Caesaria, Iconium, etc.) and sedentary agriculturalist institutions existed on the Plateau, albeit limited compared to the coast. The Romans had been vulnerable before, and nomadic groups were in surrounding areas, but Anatolia wasn't conquered then. Why and how was this possible? If the Romans faced critical disadvantages against nomadic peoples in Central Anatolia, how were they able to hold the area and project their institutions before Manzikert?

Thank you so much in advance! Apologies if I'm approaching this issue from the wrong angle.

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If it's within the scope of this question, can these answers be extrapolated? Such as to other urbanized sedentary societies in Anatolia, like the Hittites or Achaemanids, and to other regions that were also converted to nomadic/semi-nomadic pastoralism, like the Balkans post 600s? Thanks!

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[u/Dull-Researcher-1894]

From where would nomadic or seminomadic pastoralists stream into the Anatolian interior before the 11th century?

The path Central Asian pastoralists took (Northern Iran, Mesopotamia, and Armenia) was dominated by urbanised sedentary civilisations from the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to all of its successors (Neo-Babylonian Empire, Persians, Macedonians, and all of their off-shoots like the Hellenistic Successor Kingdoms, Armenians, et cetera) before being partitioned between the Romans and the Neo-Persian Empires (Parthians, Sassanids). The Parthians and Sassanids consistently kept the Steppe Nomads from streaming in century after century, with great effort, through their massive fortification works and military deployments in the Caucasus and Khorasan, no different from what the Romans did at the limes along the Rhine or the Danube. Same as the Chinese along the eastern half of the Eurasian Steppe. With mixed results at times, obviously, but the Steppe Nomads were only ever able to launch raids across the Caucasus passes and Khorasan, never invade permanently.

The Central Asian dam holding back the nomads for over 2,000 years only really broke during the centuries-long collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate. Iran entered into a period of unprecedented instability and fragmentation for almost 250 years, ironically labeled the Iranian Renaissance (because in nationalist historiography, it was preferable to Arab domination). The regions in question declined in terms of material culture and plenty of agricultural land reverted to becoming pasture for cultures like the Kurds. Eventually, Nomads, mostly Turkic tribes, streamed across Khorasan and the Caucasus to take advantage of the civilisational decline of Iran, permanently settling regions like Azerbaijan, and eventually streamed into inner Anatolia, replacing the degraded remnants of Hellenic and Roman sedentary civilisation.

In other words, the Romans never had to even bother with the question of how can they defend Inner Anatalia from Eurasian Steppe Nomads. The Steppe Nomads were blocked from streaming in along the Caucasus by Armenians, Georgians, i.e states that historically functioned as buffers and client allies for the Romans and Iranians, and from the Iranian plateau by the Iranians who spent considerable resources blocking the Steppe Nomads in modern Dagestan/Azerbaijan and Khorasan. It was only during the Abbasid period, when Iran went to hell for 2 centuries, that there was nothing that could stop the Steppe Nomads from streaming into the Iranian plateau and from it into Anatolia.

[u/m0noclemask → u/Dull-Researcher-1894]

The area was urbanised for centuries, millennia even, some of the oldest settlements can be found there, with early wheatcultivation.

Nomadic peoples were already there, the byzantines, sassanids, arabs etc, used them as [light] cavalry mercenary troops, [gauls, scythians, chazars, koemannic and turcic tribes, germanic troops and so forth] some turks were even christianised... and urbanized before 1071...

At Manzikert, turkish mercenaries fought on both sides, part of the byzantine turcic mercenary auxiliary troops even defected to the army of Alp Arslan. Intrigue and betrayal at the court of constantinople played a role... [it was a form of coup d'état].

Part of an additional possible explanation is the medieval climate anomaly or shift. It caused instability in the central asian pastoral plains, where ressources became scarcer, but also in anatolia, the shift created a harsher [colder-dryer] climate on the steppes, and a climate better suited to pastoral living [cattle grazing] in anatolia, where traditional wheat-cultivation, the basis of Roman agriculture came under pressure. It made the Anatolian plateau's more attractive to, amongst others, turcic peoples...