up the road to Aleppo. Indeed, when he resumed his attacks in April 962, Nikephoros ignored Cilicia, and instead proceeded to attack Marash, Sisium, Duluk and Manbij, thereby securing the western passes over the Anti-Taurus Mountains. Sayf al-Dawla appears to have been oblivious to this threat: instead, he sent his generals, Qarghuyah and Naja al-Kasaki, to conduct counter-raids into Byzantine territory, while he tried to restore his authority in Cilicia and rebuild Anazarbus. Negotiations for a truce and a prisoner exchange may have been ongoing at the same time, lulling the Hamdanids into complacency. This illusion was broken in November, when a Byzantine force captured Manbij, the last city north of Aleppo, capturing its governor, Sayf al-Dawla's cousin Abu Firas al-Hamdani. Early in December, Nikephoros—likely in command of a different army than that which had captured Manbij—moved onto Aleppo itself. The Arab sources dwell extensively on the following events, but provide contradictory details, so that the exact course of the campaign is uncertain. They are unanimous, however, that the attack caught Sayf al-Dawla completely off guard, possibly due to the late season, as the Byzantines did not normally campaign in winter. As a result, the Byzantines held a considerable numerical advantage—Arab sources speak of 70,000 Byzantines against just 4,000 Hamdanid soldiers in the city—leaving Sayf al-Dawla scrambling to bolster his forces with last-minute levies. As the Byzantines advanced on the city, the Hamdanids tried to oppose them, but their reaction appears to have been uncoordinated and confused: Sayf al-Dawla moved to Azaz to confront the Byzantine army, but then retreated without doing so, while his lieutenant Naja moved first towards Antioch and then back towards Azaz, where he was defeated by Nikephoros' lieutenant, Tzimiskes. Whatever the exact course of events, the Byzantines emerged victorious from these initial skirmishes, and proceeded to attack Aleppo. Sayf al-Dawla briefly confronted the Byzantine army with the small force at his disposal before his capital, but, unable to offer any meaningful resistance, he abandoned the city. The Hamdanid ruler fled to the fortress of Balis, but, pursued by Tzimiskes, he moved on to nearby Sab'in. Naja's movements are not entirely clear, but he likewise failed to come to the support of Aleppo. The Byzantines first plundered the unprotected palace of Halbas, securing enormous plunder, including its golden roof; the rest of the building was then torn down. Left without hope of relief, the Aleppines began