Sicily Greeks, Lombards, and Normans worked together to form a society that historians have said created some of the most extraordinary buildings that the world has ever seen. Palermo continued on as the capital under the Normans. Roger's son Roger II of Sicily succeeded his brother Simon of Sicily as Count of Sicily, and was ultimately able to raise the status of the island to a kingdom in 1130, along with his other holdings, which included the Maltese Islands and the Duchies of Apulia and Calabria. He appointed the powerful Greek George of Antioch to be his "emir of emirs" and
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