Siege of Rometta
| date | 963 to 965 |
|---|---|
| place | Rometta / Sicily |
| output | Siege successful |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| unknown | 40,000 |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
more than 10,000 |
The Siege of Rometta ( Italian Assedio di Rometta , Arabic حصار روميتا, DMG Ḥiṣār Ramiṭṭa ) occurred in Sicily from 963 to 965 and ended with the conquest of the Byzantine mountain fortress Rometta by an Islamic army . With the fall of the fortress, the occupation of Sicily by the Muslims was completed, which lasted until the Norman conquest about a hundred years later.
prehistory
Almost 30 years after the conquest of the province of Africa (Arabic: Ifrīqiya , today Tunisia ), the Muslims invaded Sicily from there in 827, which began a decades-long and changeable struggle against the Christian Byzantine Empire for the island. With the first capture of Taormina in 902, the Muslims were able to bring the entire island under their control for the first time, from which they could now regularly carry out robbery trips along the Italian coast. However, the overthrow of the Sunni governor dynasty of the Aghlabids by the newly founded caliphate of the Shiite Fatimids in 909 endangered Muslim rule over Sicily, as denominational and ethnic differences arose among the Muslim occupying forces , which were composed of Arabs and Berbers . In the following years order on the island disintegrated into anarchy , which the Fatimids could only partially master. This situation favored the return of the Byzantines, who reoccupied Taormina and from there were able to regain control over the Val Demone , which they secured with fortified structures such as the Rometta ( Sicilian: Rametta ) fortress .
In 948 Caliph al-Mansur appointed the local clan leader of the Arab calf tribe, Hassan ibn Ali al-Kalbi, as the new governor of Sicily, thus initiating a new phase of systematic conquest. On December 25, 962, the Kalbites recaptured Taormina for Islam and successively destroyed the Byzantine fortresses of Val Demone until the heavily fortified Rometta was the last Christian bastion.
The siege
On August 24, 963, the Muslim army led by Hassan ibn Ammar al-Kalbi , a nephew of the governor, moved up to the foot of the Rometta mountain cone and sealed off the city from the outside world. But the Byzantine garrison had managed to send a cry for help to Constantinople . Emperor Nikephorus II set up a relief army under the command of his nephew Manuel Phokas , which in the summer of 964 transferred from Reggio to the island on a fleet under the admiral Niketas Abalantes . With around 40,000 men, it was the largest Roman-Byzantine army since ancient times to march on Sicilian soil. The Muslim general Hassan had learned of the approaching danger in good time and in turn sent a request for help to Caliph al-Muizz , who also sent him a reinforcement army under the elder Hassan (who died of old age in Palermo ).
Leaving only a small force behind to seal off Rometta, Hassan surrendered to the Byzantine army for battle on October 25, 964 near Messina . In the first meeting at the exit of a valley basin, the Muslims were defeated and had to retreat, but Hassan was able to regroup his troops in front of Rometta and throw them against the advancing Byzantines a second time. The second meeting ended in a crushing defeat for the Byzantines. More than 10,000 of their soldiers are said to have died, including General Manuel Phokas. The defeated remainder of the imperial army fled back to the coast near Messina, where the fleet anchored, whereby the fleeing people in the narrow valleys were incessantly attacked by the Muslims and therefore once again lost a large number of their people. According to Ekkehard Eickhoff , the Byzantines experienced their own Roncesvalles here . Admiral Niketas intended to return the defeated troops to Reggio, but in the process he was also surprised in the Strait of Messina by the Muslim fleet under Ahmad ibn Hassan al-Kalbi , who had set off from Palermo in good time by his cousin Hassan. In the sea battle the Byzantine fleet was sunk, and those who did not drown fell into Muslim captivity, including the admiral.
Despite the defeat of the relief army, the defenders of Rometta were able to hold out for several months behind their defenses, in the hope that the emperor would send a second army to their aid. Children and invalids were previously evacuated from the city in order to save the food reserves for the men who were able to fight. It was not until May 965 that the supplies ran out and the defenders of hunger had been weakened that the Muslims could storm the city. All of Rometta's men were killed and the women who survived the massacre were sold into slavery.
swell
The struggle for Rometta is described in detail in the works of the Arab chroniclers Ibn al-Athir († 1233), Abu'l-Fida († 1331), an-Nuwairi († 1333), Ibn Chaldun († 1406) and al-Maqrizi ( † 1442). A recent Greek-Byzantine report is available from Leon Diakonos († approx. 1000). Liutprand von Cremona († approx. 972), the envoy of the Western Emperor Otto I in Constantinople, also mentioned the battle and the subsequent ransom of Admiral Niketas in his reports.
literature
- Michael Brett: The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century CE. Leiden / Boston / Cologne 2001, pp. 240–242.
- Ekkehard Eickhoff : Sea war and sea politics between Islam and the West: The Mediterranean under Byzantine and Arab hegemony (650-1040). Berlin 1966, pp. 345-350.
- Heinz Halm : The Empire of the Mahdi. The rise of the Fatimids 875–973. CH Beck, Munich 1991, pp. 163-167, 295, 359.