revenge for the earlier Arab sacking of Amorion, while news of the defeats sparked riots in Baghdad and Samarra. In the following months the Byzantines successfully invaded Armenia killing the Muslim governor in Armenia Emir Ali ibn Yahya as well as the Paulician leader Karbeas. These Byzantines victories marked a turning point which ushered in a century long Byzantine offensive eastward into Muslim territory. Religious peace came with the emergence of the Macedonian dynasty in 867, as well as a strong and unified Byzantine leadership; while the Abbasid empire had splintered into many factions after 861. Basil I revived the Byzantine Empire into a regional power, during a period of territorial expansion, making the Empire the strongest power in Europe, with an ecclesiastical policy marked by good relations with Rome. Basil allied with the Holy Roman Emperor Louis II against the Arabs, and his fleet cleared the Adriatic Sea of their raids. With Byzantine help, Louis II captured Bari from the Arabs in 871. The city became Byzantine territory in 876. The Byzantine position on Sicily deteriorated, and Syracuse fell to the Emirate of Sicily in 878. Catania was lost in 900, and finally the fortress of Taormina in 902. Michael of Zahumlje apparently on 10 July 926 sacked Siponto (), which was a Byzantine town in Apulia. Sicily would remain under Arab control until the Norman invasion in 1071. Although Sicily was lost, the general Nikephoros Phokas the Elder succeeded in taking Taranto and much of Calabria in 880, forming the nucleus for the later Catepanate of Italy. The successes in the Italian Peninsula opened a new period of Byzantine domination there. Above all, the Byzantines were beginning to establish a strong presence in the Mediterranean Sea, and especially the Adriatic. Under John Kourkouas, the Byzantines conquered the emirate of Melitene, along with Theodosiopolis the strongest of the Muslim border emirates, and advanced into Armenia in the 930s; the next three decades were dominated by the struggle of the Phokas clan and their dependants against the Hamdanid emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla. Al-Dawla was finally defeated by Nikephoros II Phokas, who conquered Cilicia and northern Syria, including the sack of Aleppo, and recovered Crete. His nephew and successor, John I Tzimiskes, pushed even further south, almost reaching Jerusalem, but his death in 976 ended Byzantine expansion towards Palestine. After putting an end to the internal strife, Basil II launched