The Greeks find it hard to to accept the fact that their empire, centered on Constantinople, might soon become simply one among a number of Christian principalities.

Emperor Manuel had retained the personal friendship and the alliance of the German emperor Conrad III against the Normans and even planned a joint Greek-German campaign against them in Italy, but after 1152, no such cooperation has been possible with Conrad's successor.

To Frederick, the alliance between the Roman Empire of Germany and what he calls “the kingdom of the Greeks” is not one between equals.

After Roger II of Sicily dies at fifty-eight in 1154, Manuel launches a vain invasion of the Norman kingdom on his own account, in support of the rebel towns and the barons, who have rallied around Robert III of Loritello, the cousin of William, Roger’s fourth but oldest surviving son and thus Sicily’s new king.