The Arabs were well-supplied with siege weapons, while the inhabitants of Syracuse were left largely unsupported by the Byzantine fleet, which was busy with transporting marble for a new church in Constantinople and was then delayed by adverse weather.

The Byzantine patrikios, who commanded the defense, surrendered with a few of his men, but they were executed after a week, while a handful of soldiers escaped and brought the news east to the fleet that had belatedly set sail to aid the city.

He appointed a new governor for the island, Ja'far ibn Muhammad, and sent a fleet from the Aghlabid metropolis of Ifriqiya to assist the local Sicilian troops.

[7] The Muslims, well supplied with siege weapons, including a new type of mangonel, launched incessant attacks on the city's defenders by day and night.

Theodosios focuses most of his account on the sufferings of the inhabitants, "reduced by starvation and disease," and the "hyper-inflationary prices paid for paltry amounts of staple foods," as described by Alex Metcalfe.

Nevertheless, the patrikios of the city rallied the defenders, and for twenty days they managed to hold the breach against superior numbers, so that the surrounding area was filled with the dead and wounded.

Unlike the Church of the Saviour, the Arab soldiers did not mistreat them, but forced the archbishop to reveal the location of the sacristy where the precious liturgical objects were held.

Warfare continued through the 880s, with the Arabs attempting to subdue the remaining Byzantine strongholds in the northeastern third of the island with limited success: the raids yielded booty to pay the army, but no forts were taken.

[18] The same period also saw a resurgence of Byzantine strength in the Italian mainland, where generals like Nikephoros Phokas the Elder won a string of victories against the Muslims.

A full-scale civil war between Arabs and Berbers erupted in 898, and was not ended until Ibrahim II's son Abu'l-Abbas Abdallah captured Palermo in 900.

[21][22] Although a few fortresses in the northeast remained unconquered and in Christian hands up to the fall of Rometta in 965,[23][24] the capture of Taormina marked the effective end of Byzantine Sicily and the consolidation of Muslim control over the island.