 In the summer of 732, Marwan led 40,000 men north into Khazar lands. The accounts of this campaign are confused: Ibn A 'tham records that he reached Balanjar and returned to Derbent with much captured livestock, but the campaign is described in terms strongly reminiscent of Maslama's expeditions in 728 and 731, and its veracity is open to doubt. Ibn Khayyat on the other hand reports that Marwan led a far more limited campaign on the country immediately to the north of Derbent and then retired there to spend the winter. Marwan was more active in the south, where he raised Ashot III Bagratuni to the position of presiding prince of Armenia, effectively granting the country broad autonomy in exchange for the service of its soldiers alongside the Caliphate's armies. This unique concession points, according to Blankinship, to the worsening manpower crisis faced by the Caliphate. At about the same time, the Khazars and Byzantines strengthened their ties and formalized their alliance against their common enemy with the marriage of Constantine V to the Khazar princess Tzitzak.
