County of Sicily with Robert Guiscard. In fact, the seat of Roger I's government was the Calabrian town of Mileto. According to the historians Agostino Inveges and Matteo Camera Roger I started to use the title ""Great Count of Sicily and Calabria"" since 1096. After the death of Roger I the major change was the transfer of the capital: Palermo became the capital in 1112, when Roger II was invested with the County, after the regency of the mother Adelaide del Vasto. With this change, Sicily come to be governed by the central government, while the Calabrian territories became a provincial administrative unit.
Sicily The Muslim conquest of Sicily was a see-saw affair and met with much resistance. It took over a century for Byzantine Sicily to be conquered; the largest city, Syracuse, held out until 878 and the Greek city of Taormina fell in 962. It was not until 965 that all of Sicily was conquered by the Arabs. In the 11th century Byzantine armies carried out a partial reconquest of the island under George Maniakes, but it was their Norman mercenaries who would eventually complete the island's reconquest at the end of the century. The Arabs initiated land reforms, which increased productivity