How the themes were created.

The Peasants and their Misfortunes.

The military Aristocracy and the Collapse of the Empire.

Example of the Struggle between the Military Aristocracy and the Court Nobility.

How the themes were created.

 The longevity of the Byzantine Empire cannot be understood without delving into the origin of its most characteristic administrative division: the themes.

 To start with the basics, what were the themes? A theme, quite simply, was a well-defined territory with a military governor in charge of the two most important functions: the civil and military administration of the territory.

 An important precursor of the themes were the exarchates of Ravenna in Italy and Carthage in northwest Africa, created during the reign of Maurice at the end of  the 6th century, because they shared the same characteristic: that is, a military governor in charge of their administration.

 Because of their great distance from Constantinople, these territories were not easy to govern. Moreover, in view of the Lombard invasion of Italy and the difficult living conditions in Africa, the exarchates allowed Byzantium to keep control over vast territories for centuries, even when the Empire was fighting the Persians or the Bulgars on other fronts.

 In the mid-7th century, the ruthless thrust of Islam tore Syria, Palestine and Egypt away from Byzantine control and threatened western Africa and Armenia. The Empire, wounded and isolated as it then was, with considerably fewer resources than before and already facing the threat of extinction at the time of the emperor Constans II, created the themes as a hybrid between the exarchate and an administration that required almost no resources: soldiers were given land in a given territory or theme in exchange for their commitment to defend it unconditionally.

 Thus, the themes became the most important administrative division of the Empire since; thanks to their armies, they consolidated its defence against dangerous enemy incursions.

 With the passing of time and with the creation of several vast themes such as Opsikion in Asia Minor, the themes became launching pads for victorious generals to be crowned emperor and to found dynasties, as in the case of Leo II who came from the theme of Anatolia.

 To safeguard their prestige as well as their own lives, many emperors gradually reduced the size of the themes and created more numerous smaller ones.

 Over the course of centuries, military families became the aristocracy of these themes. and ended up accumulating immense expanses of land and great power. This process undermined the Byzantine State, because it affected the small holdings of land farmed by freemen and allowed the big landowning families to determine the destiny of the Empire: the Comneni, Angeli, Ducas, Lascaris and the Paleologi were all notable examples of such families.

 The themes were the best solution the Emperors could find to counter the crisis caused by the loss of significant territories to the Arabs. As the remaining territories lacked resources (trade, taxes, land) the impoverished State came up with the system of paying soldiers with land. Soldier-farmers, who often settled in rural borderlands, felt the need to defend what belonged to them, and indeed did this very well for several centuries since, for them, it was a question of protecting what was theirs.

 They were thus fighting for their Empire, for their Emperor, for their general and for their own land, without which their life would be meaningless.

 Several historians have misinterpreted this as the birth of Byzantine nationalism, an interpretation which seems to the author of this article to be completely unfounded.

 The idea of a Single Universal Empire on Earth, in the likeness of the Kingdom of God in Heaven, continued to rule the lives of the Byzantines (or at least the very many who shared a certain degree of culture).

 What changed fundamentally was the composition of the army, which became more genuinely Byzantine (although made up of descendants of Armenians, Syrians, Greeks, Macedonians, etc.), because those who lived in the Empire defended it with their own lives, and were rewarded for their courage with more land to farm or lease to others in times of peace.

 At the beginning of the 7th century, the first themes of Asia Minor were Opsikion in the north–west, Armenian in the east, Anatolikon in the center and southwest, and Cibirra in the south.

 Later, at the beginning of the 9th century, the extremely powerful theme of Opsikion was divided into two: Opsikion in the northwest and Bucelarios in the north. Likewise, Anatolikon was divided into the themes of Tracesios in the southwest and Anatolikon in the centre-south. The theme of Cibirra was not so large.

 The themes were divided because they were so vast that their rulers commanded large armies and could rebel and appoint their leader emperor (as happened in 717 when the soldiers of the theme of Anatolikon proclaimed Leo emperor).

 Some military landholding families acquired growing importance on the one hand as brave generals and, on the other, because of the wealth they amassed, very much in spite of the continuous efforts of the emperors who decreed laws to avoid this.

The Peasants and their Misfortunes.

 Something must be said about the peasants: the peasantry was, without the shadow of a doubt, the basis of the Byzantine State.

 Despite the great importance of trade for the cosmopolitan cities of Thessalonica, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and many others, the State relied on the peasantry. This should be stressed because, apart from being the producers of the basic foodstuffs, they were also the ones who paid most taxes to the State.

 There were major changes in the course of the centuries, but the small farmer was the most important taxpayer of the Empire, and for that reason all the laws of the state dealing with the peasantry were aimed at protecting small landowners.

 With time, the two most important agricultural provinces, Egypt and Syria, passed into the hands of the Arabs.  Thrace and Macedonia then became the major grain producers.

 In spite of laws protecting small landowners, land gradually passed from their hands to those of the great landholders, many of whom were descendants of soldiers who had settled in the different themes several centuries earlier.

 The way they made their fortune was very simple: they had inherited great landholdings from their glorious ancestors for victories won, and they waited for a bad harvest year to buy up the farmsteads of the poor owners who could not pay their taxes (something quite unforgivable in Byzantium). The emperors realised only too well what was happening: the rise of a military aristocracy was gradually stifling the landowning freemen, who became more and more destitute and were forced to sell off their property for a few coins.

 Thus, both Romanus Lecapenus and Nicephorus Phocas (though themselves part of the very same aristocracy) as well as Basil II were staunchly opposed to this tendency, which threatened to upset the social order of the Empire and to make some families even more powerful than the emperor himself.

The Military Aristocracy and the Collapse of the Empire.

  However, this opposition proved useless. As of the second half of 11th century, the aristocracy triumphed at the expense of the Empire’s misfortunes (invasions, earthquakes, fires, drought, harsh winters which caused bad harvests and ruined the small farmers).

 Prominent families who became powerful by this method included the Brieni in Thrace, the Danieli in the Peloponese, and the Phocas, Scleri, Maniaces, Maleini, Burtzes, Botaneiates, Comneni and the Paleologi in Asia Minor.

 As we will see, the Phocas and Botaneiares  had their own emperors, and the Comneni, along with the Paleologi, managed to form true dynasties as a result of their great power.

 However, this very shift of the centre of power slowly brought about the inevitable fall of the Empire.

 One of the consequences of the administrative division of the Empire into themes was the concentration of land into large rural estates in the hands of a few landowning families who were part of an elite or a military aristocracy. From the 9th to the 15th centuries this elite succeeded in becoming the ruling class and even seized the crown of Byzantium.

 Soon after the death of Basil II, in 1025, only George Maniaces and a handful of military were really prepared for war, while the emperor of the time was a puppet of the court.

 The theme armies were already outdated, had adopted a comfortable lifestyle and were mostly led by rich landowners who, more often then not, thought only about their own well-being and ambitions.

 Therefore, there were many nobles who ruled over their territories and aspired to the imperial throne, thus reducing the emperor’s power more and more. In a nutshell, the empire was disintegrating.

 It was logical that this should happen. The institution of the themes had kept Byzantium alive, but it had already been in existence for five centuries and the world had changed.

 In the battles of those days, the great lords of the themes would often abandon the emperor to his fate so that he and his men would be defeated. Later, they   would pin the blame on him and then appoint someone more in their favour.

 Thus, the Empire fell victim to personal interests which succeeded in tearing it to pieces.

Example of the Struggle between the Military Aristocracy and the Court Nobility.

  The most patent example of these clashes was the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071, where an army commanded by generals from the themes proved to be useless. Romanus IV Diogenes, a good ruler, was betrayed by his rival, Andronicus Ducas (who belonged to another aristocratic family).  Michael Psellos, a noble of the court and, therefore, archenemy of Romanus IV (of the military aristocracy) went as far as sparking a civil war, exaggerated the consequences of the battle, and was responsible for the blinding and death of the emperor as well as the painful loss of the heart of Asia Minor: Anatolia and Capadocia fell into the hands of the Seljuq Turks.

 This was the dark side of Byzantium: the court nobility plotting against the military, who in turn betrayed each other, while the Empire was abandoned to its fate and many of its inhabitants saw their destiny changing hands.

 This is how important the army of the themes had become at the time of the battle of Mantzikert in 1071.

 Romanus IV Diogenes, an excellent soldier who had won two campaigns against the Seljuq Turks, was hardly able to recruit soldiers of the Empire that year, but rather had to turn to mercenaries. This shows that the administrative division of the themes was already inoperative or, at the very least, no longer served the purpose for which it had originally been created.

 Either because the Byzantines had other things to do or because they did not want to fight for the emperor because they belonged to the opposite side (Psellos), Romanus IV was able to recruit only a small number of soldiers: most of his army was of foreign origin, mainly Pecheneg Turks (from the north of the Danube), Normans and some contingents of Franks, that is, mercenaries belonging to the nations least interested in a Byzantine victory, men who sold their services to the highest bidder.

 Thus, that remote Armenian city near Lake Van was to witness the failure of the army of the themes, precisely because such an army was virtually nonexistent.

 Later, the unjustifiable events of the civil war started by Michael Psellos, an ominous character because of the political decisions he made for the future of Byzantium, ended with the death of the emperor. The emperor was just returning to Constantinople, bringing the good news of an excellent peace deal with the Seljuk Turks, who were content to leave the situation in the region as it was since they had their eye on the Caliphate, and Byzantium did not interest them for the time being.

 These very facts go to show that the Empire was collapsing on its own and not as a result of outside forces. Beset as it as with unresolved internal conflicts, it was destroying itself and heading for feudalism.

 It can therefore be asserted that the lack of reforms in the administrative organisation (the themes) and the army, as well as the concentration of power in the hands of the military aristocracy (for example, Romanus IV) as opposed to the court nobility  (for example Michael Psellos), caused increasing discontent, which led to  Byzantium’s self-destruction. This process continued until the military aristocracy and its growing feudalism were imposed by the Comneni. Byzantium then managed to live on for one final century of splendour before embarking on the road to its final downfall.

Rolando Castillo

Translated by Vivian Idreos Ellul

Edited by Owen Williamson

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