a critical moment. The Byzantines were totally routed. Emperor Romanos himself was captured and presented to Alp Arslan. It is reported that upon seeing the Roman emperor, the sultan leapt from his throne like a mad man, commanded Romanos to kiss the ground, and stepped on his neck. He repeatedly berated the emperor, including for spurning his emissaries and offers of peace. The unrepentant Romanos was laconic, and deigned only to offer the curtest responses to his captor’s fiery upbraiding. He merely had done what was “possible for a man, and which kings are bound to do, and I have fallen short in nothing. But God has fulfilled his will. And now, do what you wish and abandon recriminations.” “You are too trivial in my view for me to kill you,” the sultan is said to have declared before his Turks in Muslim sources. "Take him to the person who pays most.”So he was led with the rope round his neck and a proclamation was made about him: ‘Who will buy the king of Byzantium?’ They went on like that going round with him to the tents and the Muslims’ houses and the announcement for him was made in dirhams and fulus [ie. small coinage]. Nobody paid anything for him until they sold him to a man for a dog. The person, who was given the charge of brokering that on his [the sultan’s ] behalf, took the dog and the king and brought them both to Alp Arslan and said: ‘I have been round the whole camp and made a proclamation about him and nobody spent anything on him except a single man who paid me a dog for him’ Alp Arslan replied "That is just, because the dog is better than he is! Take the dog and give this dog [ie. Romanus] to him.". “He struck him three or four blows with his hand and when Romanos collapsed he kicked him a similar number of times”; he “put him in chains and fettered his hand to his neck”; he pulled his hair and put his face to the ground, while telling him, “your troops are food for the Muslims.” Wishing to test the Roman, Alp Arslan then asked Romanos what he would do to him if he was his prisoner, Romanos frankly answered "the worst!". The answer impressed Alp Arslan and he said "Ah! by Allah! He has