 On two occasions, in Sardinia and in the region of Arles (where he had been called by his ally Charles Martel) he successfully fought Saracen pirates, enhancing his reputation as a Christian king.His alliance with the Franks, crowned by a symbolic adoption of the young Pepin the Short, and with the Avars, on the eastern borders, allowed him to keep his hand relatively free in the Italian theater, but he soon clashed with the Byzantines and with the Papacy.A first attempt to take advantage of an Arab offensive against Constantinople in 717 achieved few results.