The Sultan, having failed to break the fortress walls of Libyssa in his first strike, turned instead to a brutal campaign of psychological warfare and devastation. A massive encampment now loomed to the north of the Roman lines, its banners fluttering in the early summer winds like vultures circling above. From there, he dispatched three thousand men eastward to hold the exhausted defenders of Nikomedia in check, while another three thousand scattered like a net across the region—operating as mobile detachments of scouts, pillagers, and death-bringers.
Within days, the once fertile and peaceful province of Nikomedia descended into inferno.
