Emperor Romanos appoints Nikephoros Phokas commander of…

Emperor Romanos appoints Nikephoros Phokas commander of a wartime expedition to liberate Crete, under Arab control since 826 at great cost to Aegean populations and international commerce.

This enterprise mobilizes the entire imperial fleet and close to twenty-four thousand troops.

Nikephoros on March 7, 961, gains the island with the capture of Chandax, now Iráklion.

He breaks all Arab resistance in a general massacre, the inhumanity of which reveals his fierce nature: some two hundred thousand are killed and as many enslaved, according to the Mamluk chronicler al-Nuwairi.

Aided by the monks, among whom is Athanasius, his spiritual director and founder of the Greek Orthodox monastery on Mt.

Athos, Nikephoros achieves the reconsolidation of Christianity.

He then returns to Constantinople with 'Abd al-'Aziz, the last amir of Crete, as his captive.

This exploit, sung by the poet Theodosius the Deacon, realizes the imperial dream (after dozens of attempts had failed to liberate Crete) of Constantinople’s mastery of the eastern Mediterranean.