Niketas Abalantes

Niketas, possibly surnamed Abalantes (Greek: Νικήτας [Αβαλάντης]), was a Byzantine military commander who in 964 led a major expedition against the Fatimid Caliphate in Sicily, was defeated, and spent a few years in captivity, where he copied the Codex Parisinus gr.

[2] In 964, Emperor Nikephoros II chose him to lead a large-scale expedition to Sicily,[2] where during the previous two years the Fatimids' Kalbid governors had begun reducing the remaining Byzantine strongholds in the Val Demone, capturing Taormina and laying siege to Rometta.

[2] According to Leo the Deacon, upon arriving in Sicily, the Byzantines were able to capture Syracuse and Himera, while Taormina and Leontini surrendered without resistance.

[2] Encouraged by this success, the army under Manuel Phokas advanced heedlessly into the interior to relieve Rometta, but was ambushed in October 964 and destroyed by the Fatimid troops.

[2] During his captivity in Ifriqiya, Niketas copied the homilies of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus in a fine calligraphic manuscript, which he donated to a monastery dedicated to St. George in 970, and which is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (Parisinus gr.