This marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, who had been lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids.

The Byzantines took Cartagena and other cities on the southeastern coast and founded the new province of Spania before being checked by their former ally Athanagild, who had by now become king.

Eventually the Persians took control of Syria as part of their general control of Southwest Asia ; this control transferred to the Macedonians after Alexander the Great's conquests ( after whose death hegemony of Syria passed from the Antigonids and subsequently the Seleucids ) and from thence to the Romans and the Byzantines.

Though the Byzantines recovered control of the ravaged city a half century later, the Byzantine Empire was terminally weakened, and existed as a ghost of its old self until Sultan Mehmet The Conqueror took the city in 1453.

After the Byzantines were betrayed by Admiral Euphemius, who fled to Tunisia and begged the Aghlabid leader Ziyadat Allah to help him, there was a Muslim conquest of Sicily in 831, which took until 904 against fierce resistance.

The Byzantines took possession of the interior of Albania.

Basil spent three months in Syria, during which the Byzantines raided as far as Baalbek, took and garrisoned Shaizar and captured three minor forts in its vicinity ( Abu-qubais, Masyath, ' Arqah ), and sacked Rafaniya.

Shortly before the Byzantines took the area back five years later in 615, the Persians gave control to the Christian population, who tore down the partially built Jewish Temple edifice and turned it into a garbage dump, which is what it was when the Caliph Omar took the city in the 630s.

While it is considered certain that Harald took part in Yaroslav's campaign against the Poles in 1031, it is possible that he also fought against other 1030s Kievan enemies and rivals such as the Chudes in Estonia, the Byzantines, as well as the Pechenegs and other steppe nomad people.

By 1035 the Byzantines had pushed the Arabs out of Asia Minor, and Harald took part in campaigns that went as far east as the Euphrates, where according to the skald Þjóðólfr Arnórsson ( recounted in the sagas ) he participated in the capture of eighty Arab strongholds, a number which historians Sigfus Blöndal and Benedikt Benedikz see no particular reason to question.

The Byzantines ruled till 1204, when Venetians took their place, only to be dislodged by a Genoan family in 1355, the Gattilusi.

Besides that assault the Byzantines took other precautions against the Bulgarians.

The city, which was called Drobeta by the Romans, took its name of Turnu Severin ( meaning the Tower of Severus ) from a tower on the north bank of the Danube built by the Byzantines.

In 1034, he took " Duklja " while the Byzantines were switching thrones.

The sultanate prospered, particularly during the late 12th and early 13th centuries when it took from the Byzantines key ports on the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

After Andronikos II took to the throne, the army fell apart and the Byzantines suffered regular defeats at the hands of their eastern opponents, although they would continue to enjoy success against the crusader territories in Greece.

A short period of Turkish domination in the region took part in the late 11th century, following the defeat of the Byzantines at the Battle of Malazgirt, and the Çoruh River.

There are few historical attestations that Viking Age women took part in warfare, but the Byzantine historian Johannes Skylitzes records that women fought in battle when Sviatoslav I of Kiev attacked the Byzantines in Bulgaria in 971.

Although Bulgarians and Ruses joined in defending the city, the Byzantines managed to set afire the wooden structures and roofs by missiles, and took the fortress.

The Byzantines tried to find allies and sent emissaries to the Magyars, Pechenegs and Serbs but Simeon was familiar with the methods of Byzantine diplomacy and from the very beginning took successful actions to subvert a possible alliance between his enemies.

This basin also took the name Cappadocia at the time of the Romans and Byzantines.

The troops of Bodin took Niš and started plundering the region, abusing his ' subjects ', this was seen by Vojteh as Bodin being greedier than Michael VII, and when the Byzantines under Saronites marched onto Skopje, Bodin showed no concern, making Vojteh surrender without resistance.

The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency.

Bursa became the first major capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326.

Although Osman did not physically participate in the battle, the victory at Bursa proved to be extremely vital for the Ottomans as the city served as a staging ground against the Byzantines in Constantinople, and as a newly adorned capital for Osman's son, Orhan.

During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire, whose capital it was between 972 and 992.

The Byzantines seize the capital Preslav.

Nicaea served as the interim capital city of the Byzantine Empire between 1204 and 1261, following the Fourth Crusade in 1204, until the recapture of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261.

In 968 it was reconquered by the Byzantines, and the theme of Lucania was established, with the capital at Tursikon ( Tursi ).

In Maghreb ( western North Africa ) in 686 a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qais won the Battle of Mamma over Byzantines and Berbers led by Kusaila, on the Qairawan plain, and re-took Ifriqiya and its capital Kairouan.

* Nicaea ( present-day İznik, another important city in Bithynia, and the interim Byzantine capital city between 1204 and 1261 ( Empire of Nicaea ) following the Fourth Crusade in 1204, until the recapture of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261.

The village of Söğüt ( formerly Thebasion until 1231 ) later grew into a town that served the Osmanli tribe as capital until the capture of the Byzantine city of Prusa in 1325 when the capital was moved to the far more luxurious palaces of the Byzantines.

In 1094, Kilij Arslan received a letter from Alexius suggesting that the Chaka sought to target him to move onto the Byzantines, thereupon Kilij Arslan marched with an army to Smyrna, Chaka ’ s capital, and invited his father-in-law to a banquet in his tent where he slew him while he was intoxicated.

During the conflict, the Kievan raids were repeatedly defeated by the Byzantines, who were also at war with the Bulgarians, a continuous conflict since the fall of the Bulgarian capital Preslav in 971.

In 568 ( or 569 ) Brescia was taken from the Byzantines by the Lombards, who made it the capital of one of their semi-independent duchies.

At home Omurtag undertook large scale construction, intended to both restore his capital Pliska, which had been destroyed by the Byzantines in 811, and to foster the development of a number of regional centers, palaces, and fortifications.

Ohrid was one of the capital cities of the First Bulgarian Empire that had been conquered by the Byzantines sixty years earlier.

See Ankara for the history of this region which has seen the passing of numerous great civilisations including Phrygians, Lydians, Persians and Alexander the Great, Galatians ; the city of Ankara becoming a fortified stronghold of the Byzantines ; and then falling to the Seljuk Turks, and later the Ottoman Empire ; and finally being chosen by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as the site of Turkish parliament in 1920 and subsequently in 1923 as the capital city of the Republic of Turkey.

It concludes with the war between the Byzantines led by Belisarius against his Malwa enemies transforming from a cold to a hot war as Belisarius, separated from his companions by urgent circumstances born of intrigue and might — is hotly pursued fleeing half of Malwa's might, alone and unaided, some 1500 miles from the Malwa capital ( Modern Delhi ) to make his way back home to the west.

The Byzantines plundered and burned the Bulgar capital Pliska which gave time for the Bulgarians to block passes in the Balkan Mountains that served as exits out of Bulgaria.

He met little resistance and for three days he reached the capital where the Byzantines met a 12, 000 army of elite soldiers who guarded the stronghold.

On 23 July the Byzantines quickly captured the defenseless capital.

It was rebuilt by the Byzantines, becoming the capital of the maritime Pentapolis (" Five Cities ") that included also Rimini, Pesaro, Senigallia and Ancona.

Failing to secure the defense of the Balkan passes, Sviatoslav allowed the Byzantines to penetrate into Moesia and lay siege to the Bulgarian capital Preslav.

It became the capital of the short-lived African kingdom of the Germanic Vandals ( founded in 429-430 ), which was wiped out circa 533 by the Byzantines who established the African prefecture and later the Exarchate of Carthage.

Though Chalcis, the Byzantines would guard Anatolia, Heraclius's homeland Armenia and there the Asian zone's capital Antioch.