Manuel I Komnenos invades southern Italy

1155

The Byzantine emperor, allied with rebellious Norman barons and disaffected Italian cities, landed an army at Ancona and briefly reoccupied parts of Apulia. The Byzantine effort to restore imperial rule in Italy failed by 1158, but it revived Greek influence in the Adriatic. Manuel's Italian adventure drained the treasury and diverted military resources from the Anatolian frontier, where the Seljuk Turks continued their slow absorption of Byzantine territory.