 Two years later a revolt in Taormina was bloodily suppressed, but the resistance of the Christians in the Siege of Rometta led the new emperor Nikephoros II Phokas to send an army of 40,000 Armenians, Thracians, and Slavs under his nephew Manuel, who captured Messina in October 964.On 25 October, the Byzantines were defeated in a fierce battle with the Kalbids.Manuel, along with 10,000 of his men, was killed in the fray.