page_title: Battle of Andrassos
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Andrassos / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Capture of Berroia (Aleppo) by the Byzantines under Nikephoros Phokas in 962 العربية: الاستيلاء على بيروية حلب من قبل البيزنطيين بقيادة نقفور الثاني عام 962م
context_page_description: The Battle of Andrassos or Adrassos was an engagement fought on 8 November 960 in an unidentified mountain pass on the Taurus Mountains, between the Byzantines, led by Leo Phokas the Younger, and the forces of the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo under the emir Sayf al-Dawla.
  Sayf al-Dawla had established an emirate based in Aleppo in 945, and quickly emerged as the main Muslim antagonist of the Byzantine Empire on its eastern frontier. Both sides launched raids and counter-raids with alternating success: the Hamdanids invading the Byzantine provinces of Asia Minor, and the Byzantines raiding Hamdanid possessions in Upper Mesopotamia and northern Syria.
  In mid-960, taking advantage of the absence of much of the Byzantine army on campaign against the Emirate of Crete, the Hamdanid prince launched another invasion of Asia Minor, and raided deeply and widely into the region of Cappadocia. On his return, however, his army was ambushed by Leo Phokas at the pass of Andrassos. Sayf al-Dawla himself barely escaped, but his army was annihilated.
context_section_description: Both contemporary Arab and modern historians, such as Marius Canard and J. B. Bikhazi, have commonly considered the defeat at Andrassos as a decisive engagement that destroyed Hamdanid offensive abilities for good, and opened the path for Nikephoros Phokas' subsequent exploits. The disasters inflicted on Sayf al-Dawla by the Byzantines over the following years are regarded as an inevitable consequence of this battle. Garrood on the other hand argues that the Hamdanid ruler had been able to recover from similar failures on previous occasions, and that the forces of Naja and his Tarsiot allies remained intact; furthermore, unlike the disasters that followed, his power does not appear to have been challenged in the aftermath of the battle.
  Nevertheless, Sayf al-Dawla's 960 raid was the last of this scale and ambition, and the Byzantines did not allow him to recover his strength: as soon as Nikephoros Phokas returned victorious from Crete in mid-961, he resumed the offensive in the east. The Byzantines captured Anazarbus in Cilicia, and followed a deliberate policy of devastation and massacre to drive the Muslim population away. Sayf al-Dawla's attempts to halt the Byzantine advance in Cilicia failed, and Nikephoros Phokas, with an army reportedly 70,000 strong, took Marash, Sisium, Duluk and Manbij, securing the western passes over the Anti-Taurus Mountains. Sayf al-Dawla sent his army north under Nadja to meet the Byzantines, but Nikephoros ignored them. Instead, the Byzantine general led his troops south and in mid-December they suddenly appeared before Aleppo. There they defeated an improvised army before the city walls. The Byzantines stormed the city and plundered it, except for the citadel, which continued to hold out. The Byzantines departed in early 963, taking much of the populace with them as captives. In 963, following the death of Emperor Romanos II, Nikephoros turned his attention to the power struggle that saw him ascend the imperial throne.
  The defeats of the previous years, and particularly the sack of Aleppo, had dealt an irreversible blow on Sayf al-Dawla's power and authority. From then on, until his death, Sayf al-Dawla's rule would be plagued by revolts and disputes between his subordinates. At the same time, the Hamdanid prince also suffered from physical decline, with the onset of hemiplegia, as well as worsening intestinal and urinary disorders, that confined him to a litter. The disease limited Sayf al-Dawla's ability to intervene personally in the affairs of his state; he soon abandoned Aleppo to the charge of his chamberlain, Qarquya, and spent most of his final years in Mayyafariqin, leaving his senior lieutenants to carry the burden of warfare against the Byzantines and the various rebellions that increasingly occurred in his domains.
  In autumn 964, Nikephoros, now emperor, campaigned in the east. Mopsuestia was besieged but held out. Nikephoros returned in the next year, stormed the city and deported its inhabitants. On 16 August 965, Tarsus was surrendered by its inhabitants. Cilicia became a Byzantine province, and Nikephoros re-Christianized it. Amidst rebellions and Byzantine raids as far as the Jazira, Sayf al-Dawla died at Aleppo in February 967.
  His son and successor, Sa'd al-Dawla, faced constant internal turmoil, and he did not secure control of his own capital until 977. On 28 October 969, Antioch fell to the Byzantines. The fall of the great metropolis of northern Syria was soon followed by a treaty between the Byzantines and Qarquya, the ruler of Aleppo, which made the city a tributary vassal. Byzantine rule was extended over the entirety of the former thughūr, as well as the coastal strip of Syria between the Mediterranean Sea and the Orontes River until the environs of Tripoli, Arqa, and Shayzar. The rump Emirate of Aleppo was left almost powerless and became a bone of contention between the Byzantines and the new power of the Middle East, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt.
caption: The capture of Aleppo by the Byzantines in late 962, from the Madrid Skylitzes
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