…the united Abbasid army marches unopposed to…

…the united Abbasid army marches unopposed to Amorion, besieging the fortress for two weeks.

Just before its capture by the Arabs, fighting breaks out between Jews and Christians.

Included in the conflict is a Judaizing Christian sect that keeps Biblical Law (except circumcision) and allows both men and women to serve as spiritual leaders.

Rumors are spread that the late Emperor Michael II had come from this sect.

Out of its entire population of some seventy thousand, only about half survive the brutal sack, to be sold as slaves.

The fall of the city is to be one of the heaviest blows suffered by the Empire in the entire ninth century, both in material and symbolic terms.

Luckily for the Empire, news of a rebellion in the Caliphate forces al-Mu'tasim to withdraw soon after.

Tragic though they are for the Empire at the time, the defeat at Anzen and the subsequent sack of Amorion are militarily of no long-term importance to the Empire, since the Abbasids fail to follow up on their success.

They do, however, play a crucial role in discrediting iconoclasm, which has always relied on military success to maintain its validity.

Immediately after the sack, rumors reach the caliph that Theophilos was advancing to attack him.

Mu'tasim sets out with his army a day's march along the road in the direction of Dorylaion, but encounters no sign of an imperial attack.

According to al-Tabari, Mu'tasim now pondered extending his campaign to attack Constantinople, when news reached him of a rebellion headed by his nephew, al-Abbas ibn al-Ma'mun.

Mu'tasim is forced to cut short his campaign and return quickly to his realm, leaving intact the fortresses around Amorium as well as Theophilos and his army in Dorylaion.

Taking the direct route from Amorium to the Cilician Gates, both the caliph's army and its prisoners suffer in the march through the arid countryside of central Anatolia.

Some captives are so exhausted that they cannot move and are executed, whereupon others find the opportunity to escape.

In retaliation, Mu'tasim, after separating the most prominent among them, executes the rest, some six thousand in number.