Siege of Antioch

Lore & Background

The siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098, on the Crusaders' way to Jerusalem through Syria. Two sieges took place in succession. The Crusaders sieged the city held by the Seljuk Empire from 20 October 1097 to 3 June 1098, when the Crusaders successfully took the city. A Seljuk relieving army then sieged the Crusaders for three weeks in late June. The second siege led to the Battle of Antioch in which the Crusaders defeated the Seljuks led by Kerbogha. The Crusaders then established the Principality of Antioch, ruled by Bohemond of Taranto.

Antioch (modern Antakya) lay in a strategic location on the Crusaders' route to Judea through the Syrian Coastal mountain range. Supplies, reinforcements and retreat could all be controlled by the city. Anticipating that it would be attacked, the Seljuk governor of the city, Yağısıyan, began stockpiling food and sending requests for help. The Byzantine walls surrounding the city presented a formidable obstacle to its capture, but the leaders of the Crusade felt compelled to besiege Antioch anyway.

The Crusaders arrived outside the city on 21 October and began the siege. The garrison sortied unsuccessfully on 29 December. After stripping the surrounding area of food, the Crusaders were forced to look farther afield for supplies, opening themselves to ambush. On 31 December, a force of 20,000 Crusaders encountered a relief army led by Duqaq, ruler of Damascus, heading to Antioch and defeated them. As the siege went on, supplies dwindled, and in early 1098 one in seven of the Crusaders was dying from starvation, and people began deserting.

Reader's Guide

The siege of Antioch was a pivotal event in the First Crusade, marking the Crusaders' first major conquest in Syria and enabling their subsequent advance toward Jerusalem. The city's strategic location allowed control of supplies, reinforcements, and retreat along the route through the Syrian Coastal mountain range. The successful capture of Antioch after a nine-month siege, followed by the defeat of a relieving Seljuk army under Kerbogha, demonstrated the Crusaders' resilience despite severe starvation and desertion. The establishment of the Principality of Antioch under Bohemond of Taranto created a lasting Crusader state in the region. The siege is notable for its two phases—first the Crusaders besieging the city, then being besieged themselves—and for the critical role of local Christian populations and internal Seljuk rivalries. Contemporary sources include four narrative accounts and nine letters, though exact troop numbers remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from 43,000 at Nicaea to as few as 15,000 at Jerusalem. The city's formidable Byzantine walls, 400 towers, and citadel on Mount Silpius made direct assault impractical, forcing the Crusaders into a prolonged blockade. The siege's outcome shaped Crusader strategy and territorial control in the Levant for decades.

Did You Know?

• The siege consisted of two phases: the Crusaders besieging Antioch from 20 October 1097 to 3 June 1098, then being besieged by a Seljuk relieving army from 7 to 28 June 1098.
• During the first siege, in early 1098 one in seven Crusaders was dying from starvation, and people began deserting.
• Antioch's walls dated from the reign of Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century and were studded with 400 towers.
• The Seljuk governor Yaghi-Siyan imprisoned the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and turned St Peter's Cathedral into a stable before the Crusaders arrived.

Strategic Geography and the Walls of Antioch

Antioch, now known as Antakya, occupied a commanding position in the Orontes Valley, making it an unavoidable obstacle on any route from Anatolia to Judea. The city sprawled across more than 3.5 square miles, ringed by walls punctuated with roughly 400 towers, a defensive system originally laid down during the reign of Justinian I in the sixth century. The Orontes River traced the northern wall, entering from the northwest and threading eastward through the upper half of the settlement. Above the valley floor, Mount Silpius rose approximately 1,000 feet, crowned by a citadel whose primary strength lay in sheer inaccessibility. Six gates provided entry, but the steep valley slopes made southern, eastern, and western approaches impractical for large forces, leaving the flatter northern ground as the only viable axis of attack. Despite two earlier changes of hands between the sixth and eleventh centuries, each had been the product of internal betrayal rather than the walls failing. When the Seljuks took the city in 1085, it marked the final loss of a Byzantine stronghold in Syria.

The Grind of the First Siege

The Crusaders closed in on Antioch on 21 October 1097, but what followed was not a swift conquest. The garrison under Yaghi-Siyan held firm, and on 29 December they launched a sortie that the besiegers repelled. As weeks bled into months, the Crusaders exhausted every patch of arable land around the city and were compelled to send foraging parties ever farther out, exposing them to ambush. The toll was devastating: by early 1098, roughly one in seven members of the crusading force was perishing from hunger, and desertions became common. Two relief armies tested the siege lines in succession. First, Duqaq of Damascus led a force of 20,000 that the Crusaders routed on 31 December. Then, on 9 February, Ridwan of Aleppo advanced with his own army and met the same fate. Despite these setbacks for the defenders, the city's walls held until 3 June, when the Crusaders finally breached the defenses, though the citadel on Mount Silpius remained in Turkish hands.

The Second Siege and the Battle of Antioch

The fall of the city walls did not end the fighting. Kerbogha, atabeg of Mosul, marshaled a large Seljuk army and laid siege to the Crusaders now entrenched inside Antioch. This second siege endured from 7 to 28 June 1098, a tense three-week standoff in which the Crusaders, still weakened by months of starvation, faced annihilation from within the very walls they had just captured. On 28 June, the Crusader leaders made the decisive choice to sally out and meet Kerbogha's host in open battle. The engagement, known as the Battle of Antioch, ended in a crushing defeat for the Seljuk forces. Witnessing their relieving army shattered, the garrison still holding the citadel on Mount Silpius surrendered. With the city fully secured, the Crusaders established the Principality of Antioch, placing Bohemond of Taranto at its head, and thus transformed a temporary military foothold into a permanent political entity in the Levant.

Yaghi-Siyan's Preparations and the Web of Regional Alliances

Yaghi-Siyan, the Seljuk governor appointed in 1087, tracked the Crusader army's march through Anatolia with growing alarm. Knowing Antioch sat squarely between the invaders and Palestine, he moved to fortify his position and, in a dramatic reversal of his earlier tolerance toward the city's predominantly Christian population, imprisoned the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch John the Oxite, converted St Peter's Cathedral into a stable, and expelled numerous leading Christians. Simultaneously, he dispatched urgent pleas for reinforcements across the region. Ridwan of Aleppo, bound by personal enmity toward Yaghi-Siyan, refused to assist. But Duqaq of Damascus, Toghtekin, Kerbogha, the sultans of Baghdad and Persia, and the emir of Homs all pledged troops. Yaghi-Siyan also began stockpiling food in anticipation of a prolonged blockade. This web of alliances and rivalries among the Seljuk and regional emirs would shape every phase of the siege, from the failed relief attempts to the ultimate confrontation with Kerbogha's army.