 Meanwhile, the Ifriqiyans of Mazara, together with some of the Andalusians, had advanced across the island and laid siege to Palermo.The city held out for a year until September 831, when its commander, the "spatharios" Symeon, surrendered it in exchange for safe departure for the city's senior officials and possibly the garrison as well.The city suffered greatly during the siege; the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir, records—probably with some exaggeration—that the city's population fell from 70,000 to 3,000, who were taken as slaves.