Siege of Rometta | |||||||||
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Part of the Arab–Byzantine wars and the Muslim conquest of Sicily | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Byzantine Empire | |||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
60,000 | 40,000 | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
Unknown | Heavy |
The siege of Rometta was a successful siege of the Byzantine city of Rometta, in northeastern Sicily, by the Kalbids on behalf of the Fatimid Dynasty, that took place between 963 and 965 and marked the conclusion of the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
The siege was led by the two Kalbid cousins al-Hasan ibn Ammar and Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Kalbi. In 962, Taormina was besieged and reduced by Ahmad, where the entire population was sold into slavery and the area was colonized by Muslim resettlers. [1] Following the fall of Taormina in 962, the Kalbids moved north to Rometta. The next year Ahmad began the siege. The city soon sent an envoy to the Byzantine emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas, requesting military aid and provisions. Nikephoros responded by equipping a fleet of around 40,000 men, many of whom were veterans from the Byzantine conquest of Crete, for battle in Sicily. The fleet was commanded by Niketas Abalantes, while the cavalry was commanded by Manuel Phokas, [1] a nephew of emperor Nikephoros through his brother, Leo Phokas the Younger. [2] In October, 964, the siege was reinforced by Berber troops led by the emir of Sicily, al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Kalbi. [3] [4] [5] On 25 October, the Byzantines and the Muslims engaged one another. The Byzantines were initially in control of the battle, however, the Muslims were soon able to rout them, supposedly killing more than a quarter of the force, including Phokas. The surviving Byzantines attempted to flee back to their fleet at Messina, but were ambushed upon departure in the Battle of the Straits and defeated. Without reinforcements, Rometta was unable to defend itself against the Kalbids and soon fell in May 965. [6] [4]
Year 964 (CMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.
Nikephoros II Phokas, Latinized Nicephorus II Phocas, was Byzantine emperor from 963 to 969. His career, not uniformly successful in matters of statecraft or of war, nonetheless greatly contributed to the resurgence of the Byzantine Empire during the 10th century. In the east, Nikephoros completed the conquest of Cilicia and retook the islands of Crete and Cyprus, opening the path for subsequent Byzantine incursions reaching as far as Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant; these campaigns earned him the sobriquet "pale death of the Saracens".
Abu Tahir Isma'il, better known by his regnal name al-Mansur Billah, was the third caliph of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya, ruling from 946 until his death. He presided over a period of crisis, having to confront the large-scale Kharijite rebellion of Abu Yazid. He succeeded in suppressing the revolt and restoring the stability of the Fatimid regime.
The Kalbids were a Muslim Arab dynasty which ruled the Emirate of Sicily from 948 to 1053. They were formally appointed by the Fatimids, but gained, progressively, de facto autonomous rule.
The island of Sicily was under Islamic rule from the late ninth to late eleventh centuries. It became a prosperous and influential commercial power in the Mediterranean, with its capital of Palermo serving as a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.
The history of Islam in Sicily and southern Italy began with Arab colonization in Sicily, at Mazara, which was captured in 827. The subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta started in the 10th century. The Emirate of Sicily lasted from 831 until 1061, and controlled the whole island by 902. Though Sicily was the primary Muslim stronghold in Italy, some temporary footholds, the most substantial of which was the port city of Bari, were established on the mainland peninsula, especially in mainland southern Italy, though Arab raids, mainly those of Muhammad I ibn al-Aghlab, reached as far north as Naples, Rome and the northern region of Piedmont. The Arab raids were part of a larger struggle for power in Italy and Europe, with Christian Byzantine, Frankish, Norman and indigenous Italian forces also competing for control. Arabs were sometimes allied with various Christian factions against other factions.
The Muslim conquest of Sicily began in June 827 and lasted until 902, when the last major Byzantine stronghold on the island, Taormina, fell. Isolated fortresses remained in Byzantine hands until 965, but the island was henceforth under Muslim rule until conquered in turn by the Normans in the 11th century.
The siege of Syracuse from 877 to 878 led to the fall of the city of Syracuse, the Byzantine capital of Sicily, to the Aghlabids. The siege lasted from August 877 to 21 May 878 when the city, effectively left without assistance by the central Byzantine government, was taken by the Aghlabid forces.
Marianos Argyros was a Byzantine aristocrat and member of the Argyros family. A monk, in 944 he supported the assumption of sole rule by Constantine VII, and was allowed to leave the monastery and enter imperial service. He held a succession of senior military commands, fighting in southern Italy against local rebels and the Fatimids, and in the Balkans against the Magyars. In 963, he tried to oppose the takeover of the imperial throne by the general Nikephoros Phokas by assuming control over Constantinople and arresting his father, Bardas Phokas the Elder. During the ensuing clashes, he was hit on the head by a platter and died on the next day, 16 August.
The navy of the Fatimid Caliphate was one of the most developed early Muslim navies and a major force in the central and eastern Mediterranean in the 10th–12th centuries. As with the dynasty it served, its history is in two phases. The first was c. 909 to 969, when the Fatimids were based in Ifriqiya ; the second lasted until the end of the dynasty in 1171, when they were based in Egypt. During the first period, the navy was employed mainly against the Byzantine Empire in Sicily and southern Italy, where it enjoyed mixed success. It was also in the initially unsuccessful attempts to conquer Egypt from the Abbasids and brief clashes with the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba.
The Battle of the Straits was fought in early 965 between the fleets of the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate in the Straits of Messina. It resulted in a major Fatimid victory, and the final collapse of the attempt of Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas to recover Sicily from the Fatimids.
Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abi al-Husayn al-Kalbi, known in Byzantine sources as Boulchasenes and Aboulchare (Ἀβουλχαρέ), was the first Kalbid Emir of Sicily. A member of an aristocratic family within the ruling circle of the Fatimid Caliphate, he helped suppress the great revolt of Abu Yazid in 943–947 and was sent as governor of Sicily from 948 until 953, when he returned to Ifriqiya. He was succeeded in Sicily by his son Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Kalbi, but led several campaigns in Sicily and southern Italy against the Byzantines in 955–958, as well as the raid against Almeria that sparked a brief conflict with the Caliphate of Córdoba in 955. He died at Palermo in 964, during another campaign against the Byzantines.
ʿAmmar ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī al-Ḥusayn al-Kalbī was a member of the Kalbid family and a military commander for the Fatimid Caliphate in its wars with the Byzantine Empire in Sicily and southern Italy in the 950s.
Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAmmār al-Kalbī, usually called simply Ibn Ammar in the Arabic sources, was an Arab commander for the Fatimid Caliphate. A member of the Kalbid family, he was active in the wars with the Byzantine Empire in Sicily in the 960s, leading the capture of Taormina and Rometta, which completed the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
The siege of Taormina in 962 was a successful siege by the Fatimid governors of Sicily of the main Byzantine fortress on the island, Taormina.
The siege of Chandax in 960-961 was the centerpiece of the Byzantine Empire's campaign to recover the island of Crete which since the 820s had been ruled by Muslim Arabs. The campaign followed a series of failed attempts to reclaim the island from the Muslims stretching as far back as 827, only a few years after the initial conquest of the island by the Arabs, and was led by the general and future emperor Nikephoros Phokas. It lasted from autumn 960 until spring 961, when the main Muslim fortress and capital of the island, Chandax was captured. The reconquest of Crete was a major achievement for the Byzantines, as it restored Byzantine control over the Aegean littoral and diminished the threat of Saracen pirates, for which Crete had provided a base of operations.
Abu'l-Qasim Ali ibn al-Hasan al-Kalbi, known to the Byzantine Greeks as Bolkasimos (Βολκάσιμος), was the third Emir of Sicily. He ruled from June 23, 970 to his death in battle on July 13, 982.
Ahmadibn al-Hasan al-Kalbi was the second Kalbid Emir of Sicily. He was the son of the first Kalbid emir, al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Kalbi, who ruled the island on behalf of the Fatimid Caliphate. Ahmad succeeded his father in May 953 until 968, apart from a brief interruption in 958/9. In the 960s, he led the completion of the Muslim conquest of Sicily by capturing the last Byzantine strongholds of Taormina and Rometta and defeating a Byzantine relief expedition. He was recalled to Ifriqiya to participate in the upcoming Fatimid conquest of Egypt, and died there shortly after.
Ahmad ibn Ziyadat Allah ibn Qurhub, commonly known simply as Ibn Qurhub, ruled Sicily in rebellion against the Fatimid Caliphate, from 913 to 916. He launched raids against the Byzantine Empire in southern Italy and against the shores of Fatimid Ifriqiya, but was deposed and handed over to the Fatimids, who executed him and his followers in July 916.
Niketas, possibly surnamed Abalantes, was a Byzantine military commander who in 964 led a major expedition against the Fatimid Caliphate in Sicily, was defeated, and spent a few years in captivity, where he copied the Codex Parisinus gr. 497 manuscript.