George of Antioch

[1] George lived in Antioch for a part of his life before he and his family found work with the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos until their exile from the Empire.

[1] There he spent the remainder of his life, serving as both an administrator and military commander with profound influence within the Kingdom of Sicily until his death.

Much like in Ifriqiya, George was placed in charge of administrating the district of Iato in Sicily,[7] and was given the position as an ambassador to the Fatimids of Egypt.

[8] However, as noted in the accounts of the Muslim scholars al-Maqrizi and al-Tijani, George soon began to discredit Christodulus, and took his position at court.

Familiar with the norms and traditions of Muslim courts, George was instrumental in further cementing and intensifying the Arabic character of Norman Sicily.

[11] It seems likely that the lack of George, who served as a bridge between the Greeks, Normans, and Arabs of Sicily, contributed to the decline in diverse cultural influences seen after his death in 1151 or 1152.

Joshua Birk makes the case that the Arabic character of the Norman court was ostracized almost immediately after George's death.

The attack started out successfully with the seizure of the fortress of ad-Dimas near Mahdia, but the two admirals were soon defeated at the hands of the Zirids, and lost 200 of the 300 ships they had sailed from Sicily with.

Starting in 1140, George began raiding the city of Mahdia on a regular basis, on King Roger II's orders.

While there had been a history of conflict between the Normans and the Byzantines over land in Italy,[17] Roger II took that fight to Byzantium proper through raids on Greece starting in 1147.

George then sailed back around the Peloponnese and into the Gulf of Corinth, where he and his troops set out onto the land, attacking Thebes, sacking and looting the city, and absconding with great wealth.

George then made his way to the city of Corinth, which was lightly defended, and did much the same as he did in Thebes and returned to Sicily with his spoils in late 1147.

[21] In 2015, the Martorana was made part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Monreale and Cefalu.