The fall of Thessalonica and the Norman advance towards Constantinople precipitated the downfall of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos and the elevation of Isaac II Angelos.

Isaac armed and paid these troops, and sent them off to join the field army already assembled under the experienced general Alexios Branas, which was placed to block the Norman advance.

The reinforced Byzantine army under Branas attacked the Norman advanced guard, routing a division of this force and pursuing it back to the town before again defeating it outside its walls.

Any Normans who did not manage to escape from Thessalonica were massacred by the Alan troops of the Byzantine army in revenge for the deaths of their kinsmen when the city was sacked.

The city of Dyrrhachium on the Adriatic coast was the only part of the Balkans that remained in Norman hands and this fell the following Spring after a siege, effectively ending the attempted Sicilian conquest of the Empire.