Krasos, Battle of
804 CE
The Battle of Krasos is a battle in the Arab–Byzantine Wars that takes place in August 804, between the Byzantines under Emperor Nikephoros I (r. 802–811) and an Abbasid army under Ibrahim ibn Jibril.
Nikephoros' accession in 802 rhad esulted in a resumption of warfare between Byzantium and the Abbasid Caliphate.
In late summer 804, the Abbasids had invaded Byzantine Asia Minor for one of their customary raids, and Nikephoros sets out to meet them.
He is surprised, however, at Krasos and heavily defeated, barely escaping with his own life.
A truce and prisoner exchange wsre afterwards arranged.
Despite his defeat, and a massive Abbasid invasion the next year, Nikephoros perseveres until troubles in the eastern provinces of the Caliphate force the Abbasids to conclude a peace.
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Harun dispatches another raid under his general Ibrahim ibn Jibril in August 804.
The Arabs cross into Asia Minor through the Cilician Gates and raid freely.
Nikephoros sets out to meet them, but is forced to return before he can do so, due to some unspecified event at his back.
On his march home, however, the Arabs launch a surprise attack at Krasos in Phrygia and defeat his army.
According to al-Tabari, the imperial army lost forty thousand seven hundred men and four thousand pack animals, while the Emperor himself was wounded three times.
The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor confirms that the imperial army lost many men and that Nikephoros was almost killed himself; saved only by the bravery of his officers.
As Harun is preoccupied with trouble in Khorasan, the caliph now accepts tribute and made peace.
An exchange of prisoners is also arranged and takes place during the winter at the two empires' border, on the Lamos river in Cilicia; some thirty-seven hundred Muslims are exchanged for the imperial troops taken captive in the previous years.