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Rh Muslims under the Sicilian emir Abu'l-Ḳāsim in 976 and Apulia suffered in the next year. The only relief given was due to the local payment of blackmail, for the Byzantines, who had begun the war in spirited fashion by the momentary capture of Messina, were paralysed by the campaigns in Syria, by the civil wars which followed Tzimisces' death, and by the disaffection of the Apulians.

Otto the Red succumbed to the temptation. The Saracen danger under Abu'l-Ḳāsim grew ever more menacing and might affect his own dominions. Civil war in the East and disaffection in Italy made the Byzantines weak. He might at one and the same time repel the Muslims and bring the Regnum Italicum to its natural limits. In September 981 he had reached Lucera on the Apulian frontier when he was recalled to secure his rear. Paldolf Ironhead had soon extended his central State. When Prince Gisulf of Salerno was dethroned in 973 by a complot of rebellious nobles and his jealous neighbours of Amalfi and Naples, it was Paldolf who overthrew the usurper Landolf, his own kinsman, and restored the old, childless prince as his client. In 977 he succeeded as prince in Salerno. On Ironhead's death, however, in March 981 his great dominion dissolved. One son, Landolf IV, inlierited Capua-Benevento, and another, Paldolf, ruled Salerno. Now revolutions broke out. The Beneventans were restive under Capuan rule, and declared Ironhead's nephew Paldolf II their prince while Landolf IV retained Capua: the Salernitans drove out their Paldolf, and introduced the Byzantine ally, Duke Manso III of Amalfi. Otto accepted the separation of Capua and Benevento, but he besieged Salerno, and obtained its submission at the price of recognising Manso. He seemed to have secured a new vassal; he had lost the benefit of surprise and the halo of irresistible success. When with large reinforcements from Germany he marched through Apulia in 982, the towns did not join him, although Bari rebelled on its own account, and Taranto surrendered after a long siege. There he heard of the coming of the Saracen foe from whom he claimed to deliver his intended conquest.

Abu'l-Ḳāsim had proclaimed a Holy War and crossed to Calabria. Otto advanced to meet him. At Rossano he left the Empress Theophano and, moving south, captured the Saracens' advance guard in an unnamed town. He met the main body on the east coast, perhaps near Stilo. Headlong courage and no generalship marked his conduct of the battle, for he charged and broke the Saracen centre, without perceiving their reserves amid the hills on his flank. Abu'l-Ḳāsim had been killed, but meanwhile the exhausted Germans were attacked by the fresh troops on their flank and overwhelmed. Some four thousand were slain including