Sack of Amorium
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Sack of Amorium by the Abbasid Caliphate in mid-August 838 was one of the major events in the long history of the Byzantine–Arab Wars. The Abbasid campaign was led personally by the Caliph al-Mu`tasim (reigned 833–842), in retaliation to a virtually unopposed expedition launched by the Byzantine emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) into the Caliphate`s borderlands the previous year. Mu`tasim targeted Amorium, a Byzantine city in western Asia Minor (modern Anatolia), because it was the birthplace of the ruling Byzantine dynasty and, at the time, one of Byzantium`s largest and most important cities. The Caliph gathered an exceptionally large army, which he divided in two parts. The Abbasids...