Editing Isaac I Komnenos (section)

====Military situation====
The rebellion and civil war that brought Isaac to the throne had concentrated Byzantium's military might away from its borders. The contemporary [[Armenians|Armenian]] historian [[Aristakes Lastivertsi]] reports that the [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]n lord [[Ivane I, Duke of Kldekari|Ivane]] took advantage of this opportunity to capture two Byzantine frontier forts as well as an imperial tax collector, and lay siege to [[Theodosiopolis in Armenia|Theodosiopolis]]. The Byzantine ''doux'' at [[Ani]] drove him off, but Ivane then called upon some Turks for assistance. About a month after Isaac's coronation, these raiders reached [[Melitene]], whose inhabitants were allowed to depart before the city was plundered by the Turks. Local Byzantine troops managed to blockade the mountain passes, forcing the raiders to winter in the region of [[Chorzane]]. In spring 1058, the Turks were ambushed and defeated while they attacked the fort of Mormrans, leaving most of their captives behind. At about the same time or shortly after, another Turkish raid into [[Taron (historic Armenia)|Taron]] was heavily defeated by the Byzantine defenders. Melitene was repaired and refortified, and made the seat of a ''doux''.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=222}} 

Constantine IX had famously abolished the military obligations of the Armenian [[theme (Byzantine district)|thematic troops]] in exchange for cash payments, a step widely regarded, both by contemporaries and modern historians, as having catastrophic consequences for Byzantium's eastern defences, especially against the [[Seljuq Empire|mounting Turkish threat]]. The Turks had taken [[Vaspurakan]] during the [[regency]] following Constantine's death, exposing the Anatolian interior to their raids.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|pp=595–596}} While Isaac does not appear to have acted to restore the thematic armies,{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}} according to Kaldellis, the reaction of the local forces to these events does not appear to indicate a degradation of Byzantium's defensive abilities in the East, but rather the continued and successful application of old-established counter-raiding principles as codified in Nikephoros Phokas' ''[[De velitatione bellica]]'' a century earlier.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=222}}

Isaac led only one military expedition, in late summer of 1059, into the Balkan provinces that had been suffering raids by the [[Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1301)|Hungarians]] and the [[Pechenegs]]. The details of the campaign are obscure, but the two had possibly entered into an alliance. At [[Serdica]], the emperor made a treaty with the Hungarians—who appear to have kept the fortress town of [[Sirmium]]—before moving against the Pechenegs in the area of [[Moesia]]. Most of the Pechenegs submitted again to imperial authority. The only major combat was against the fortified stronghold of a certain Selte, a recalcitrant Pecheneg leader.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=222–223}}

On its return march the army was caught in a sudden storm on 24 September. Many men and supplies were lost, while Isaac barely escaped death when a tree struck by lightning fell next to him.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|p=599}}{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|pp=222–223}} This was followed by the false rumour that a tax assessor in the eastern provinces was plotting rebellion, and Isaac hastened back to the capital.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2017|p=223}} Despite these events, Psellos claims that at this point Isaac's character changed markedly, and that he became "more haughty to such an extent that he held everyone else in contempt", including his own brother.{{sfn|Sewter|1953|p=244}}