The emperors in the eighth century confronted an empire that had been
ruralised and depopulated, and teetered on the brink of ruin. The situation
was particularly dire when Leo III took power in 717, as Constantinople
was besieged by land and sea by enormous Arab forces. Leo followed a
succession of emperors – six in the twenty-two years following the first
deposition of Justinian II in 695 – which marked a crisis for the empire.64
The failure of the siege in 717 had considerable repercussions; this was
the first major setback in the Arab conquest which had begun in the 630s
and had continued unrelentingly ever since (see below, pp. 370–7; above,
p. 221). However, it did not guarantee the security of an empire still very
much under threat. It was because of this threat that the Isaurian emperors
and their successors, with the exception of Irene, introduced reforms
designed to strengthen the empire against its enemies. It is often difficult
to unscramble the Isaurians’ reforms from the attempts of Heraclius and
his successors to cope with the Arab invasions and the loss of the eastern
provinces; only in the ninth century do we become better informed about
the state of play. But there is now a tendency to reassess the role played by
the Isaurians, long minimised because of their discredited religious policies.
The threat which hung over the empire explains why absolute priority was
given to the army. Organising the army and maintaining it well required
that the state apparatus be placed under direct authority of the emperor;
victory depended on the purity of faith of the Christian people.
The empire’s defences were fragmented into small units stationed in
fortresses, so that walls became as important as men (see above, fig. 2 on
p. 57). Repair of the walls went on incessantly, the unrivalled champion
in this being Michael III (842–67), at the very end of the period. In Constantinople
after the earthquake of 740 Leo III paid for the restoration
of the walls, previously the inhabitants’ responsibility, out of the imperial
treasury, raising the City taxes by 813
per cent (a tax of one miliar¯esion per
nomisma, called the dikeraton). Inscriptions on the land walls near the Sea
ofMarmara record this work.65 Theophilos, for his part, repaired the walls
near the Blachernae district and large sections of the sea walls.66 At Nicaea
the walls were restored by Leo III and Michael III.67 Leo III (or Leo IV)
sent a spatharios to repair the walls of Rodandos on the Arab border, and
Leo IV sent the strat¯or Isaac, better known as Theophanes the Confessor, to
repair those of Kyzikos.68 Following the pattern at Constantinople, these
repairs were paid for by the local inhabitants, though carried out under the
orders of an imperial official.
The human element of the empire’s defence is more complicated than
that of the physical walls, and many points remain unclear. At the beginning
of the eighth century the army was based in the provinces and made
up of different corps redeployed throughout Asia Minor after 636, following
their withdrawal from the east. The troops of the magister militum per
Orientem were stationed in central Asia Minor, their name Hellenised to
Anatolikoi (from the Latin Orientales) and magister militum being translated
to strat¯egos. The troops of the magister militum per Armeniam were
deployed in northern AsiaMinor and took the Greek name of Armeniakoi;
those of the magister militum per Thracias, which had been sent as reinforcements
to the east, were pulled back to the west coast of Asia Minor
and took the name of Thrakesioi. Finally, that part of Asia Minor closest
to Constantinople had remained the quarters of the imperial guard, the
Opsikion (see above, p. 240). These army units became known as themes
(themata), a generic name whose etymology is disputed. By the beginning
of the ninth century, theme had come to mean the territory on which a
corps was stationed, with each unit’s strat¯egos based in the theme’s capital:
Amorion in the Anatolikoi, Euchaita in the Armeniakoi, Chonai in the
Thrakesioi and Nicaea in the Opsikion. Similarly, at the end of the seventh
century new army corps were installed in Sicily, Hellas and Thrace, each
commanded by a strat¯egos. This currently accepted model for the emergence
of the themes has replaced that suggested by George Ostrogorsky.69
A further development saw the subdivision of the existing army corps,
or themes, for tactical reasons; at the beginning of the ninth century the
theme of Cappadocia was created in the Anatolikoi, with its capital at
Koron; and in the Armeniakoi, the themes of Paphlagonia and Chaldia
were established. But themes could also be subdivided for political reasons,
as was the case with the Opsikion. All too often involved in plots,
it was broken up into the Boukellarioi (768) and Optimatoi (c. 775) and
these were simultaneously demoted from combat to rearguard units. The
Opsikion theme proper retained only the western part of its former territory
(Phrygia, the Hellespont and western Bithynia). Moreover, several
new themes were created: in Crete, probably in the eighth century, and
in Macedonia, the Peloponnese and Cephalonia in the ninth century. As
regards the fleet, the Kibyrrhaiotai (from the city of Kibyrrha in Caria)
had reinforced the Karabisianoi at the end of the seventh century and then
replaced them to ensure protection of the southern coasts of Asia Minor,
which were also guarded by the fleet of the Aegean Sea in the eighth century.
70 Access to the western Mediterranean was controlled by the fleet of
the Helladikoi, which revolted in 727, and a fleet of Sicily also appeared in
the 750s.71
In organisational terms, themes were subdivided into tourmai, droungoi
and banda. The tourma, at the head of which was a turmarch, and the
bandon, under the orders of a count (kom¯es), were assigned to a territory,
whereas the droungos was a tactical unit, under the orders of a droungarios.
72 The numbers of men in a unit varied by region and over time, and
figures suggested for individual themes are no more than rough estimates.73
According to Theophanes, Constantine V mobilised the entire Byzantine
army against the Bulgars inOctober 773 (or 774); this totalled some 80,000
men, drawn both from the provincial – thematic – units and from the
elite regiments stationed in the capital (tagmata). This figure is considered
reasonable by some scholars, but far too high by others,74 and should be
compared with information given at the end of the ninth century by Leo
VI in his Tactica: according to Leo, the cavalry themes had 4,000 men each,
2,000 per tourma.75
From the mid-eighth century on, the tagmata stationed at Constantinople
consisted of the Schools (scholai) and excubitors (exkoubitoi), old guard
units which over the centuries had become largely ceremonial. Constantine
V made them operational again and it was these tagmata who surrounded
the emperor on the battlefield and whose arms were provided by the state.76
The tagmata – who prefigured the professional army of the tenth and
eleventh centuries – were reinforced by Constantine V’s successors, though
the Schools were demoted for a time under Irene, punishment for their
fervent iconoclasm in hindering the meeting of the iconodule council in
786; they were replaced by another tagma, the Arithmos, formed out of
banda from various themes.77
Unlike the troops of the tagmata who were full-time, those of the
provinces were only mobilised for campaigns during the summer months
and sometimes served outside their theme; natives of the AsiaMinor themes
might even be employed in Europe.78However, some thematic soldierswere
permanently on duty if they guarded a fortress, since fortresses had standing
garrisons. The conditions under which soldiers were recruited is a question
upon which much has been written; however, it remains an open question,
involving as it does the entire system of taxation, an understanding of
which, in turn, depends on one’s interpretation of the empire’s monetary
circulation. There is agreement on some points: that thematic soldiers were
based throughout the whole territory of a theme; that they were responsible
for their own maintenance, since they had to present themselves for
service with their equipment;79 and that the administration provided for
their needs on campaign.
Various suggestions have been put forward as to how soldiers paid for
their equipment and how their service was remunerated. One is that the
tenth-century system – that military service was inextricably linked with
the holding of inalienable, exempted land – had, in fact, been in place since
the seventh-century withdrawal of troops from the east: in effect, troops
whom the state could no longer pay in cash were paid in land. Based on the
numismatic records available before c. 198080 and on the disappearance of
imperial estates between the sixth and tenth centuries,81 this interpretation
is intellectually tempting and has been favoured by those who consider
military service as a fiscal obligation, bound up with a plot of exempted
land.82 However, as has often been noted,83 such an interpretation jars
with the fact that those few contemporary sources which mention soldiers
contain no evidence of compulsory military service in connection with
land; these sources include the Ecloga, the Chronicles of Theophanes and
Nikephoros, the Lives of Philaretos and Euthymios the Younger, and the
letters of Theodore the Stoudite.
Chapter Sixteen of the Ecloga, often cited but yet to be examined in
detail, gives an idea of the position of soldiers under the Isaurians. When
soldiers (strati¯otai) were enrolled (strateuomenoi), their name and place of
origin were inscribed on the theme’s military roll, as well as on that of
the central office of the strati¯otikon in Constantinople. Enrolment entailed
military responsibilities: going to war, when called up, fully equipped with
horse, harness and arms. It also entailed benefits: soldiers received a regular
wage, which was paid whether or not they were on campaign, as well
as extra wages during combat, booty, and bonuses from the emperor or
strat¯egos. The regular wage (roga) was an annuity due to those who held
the office of soldier, the so-called strateia. The household (oikos) in which
an enrolled man lived, and which he could leave for another, was also
probably exempt fromsupplementary taxes and impositions, although there
is no mention of this in the Ecloga. Furthermore, the term strateia was not
confined to soldiers. Under the Isaurians, every individual inscribed on the
administrative roll by virtue of his office – in effect, everyone in imperial
office, including ecclesiastical office – was deemed to hold a strateia, and
thus entitled to receive a roga ‘from the hand of the emperor’, as well as
rations in kind. Strateiai could either be bought or granted out by the
emperor.84 The ways in which military strateiai changed hands are not
altogether clear. Elderly soldiers might be taken off the rolls and thus forfeit
their strateia; but on the other hand, soldiers’ widows had to furnish a fully
equipped soldier – or the equivalent sum – if they wanted to keep the
strateia, i.e. to continue receiving the roga and, perhaps, tax exemptions for
the household. This latter practice was abolished under Irene, but it must
subsequently have been re-established, as we find it in use around 840 in
the Life of Euthymios the Younger.85
Irene’s measure forced her successor Nikephoros to make up for the soldiers
who had thus been lost to the army, giving rise to the second in the list
of this emperor’s ‘vexations’ decried by Theophanes. Nikephoros decreed
that the poor from the villages should be enrolled as soldiers (strateuesthai);
theywere to be equipped at the expense of their fellowvillagers who, in addition,
were to pay 1812
nomismata for each poor man so enrolled. The latter
sum has generally been understood to be the price paid for the equipment.86
But it could also be understood as the price of the soldier’s strateia. This
would imply that the enrolled man’s roga was paid not directly to him –
though he retained any extraordinary earnings – but to those who had
jointly bought the strateia for him (the syndotai) and who, according to
article 18 of the Farmer’s law, paid his taxes and had the use of his land.
World History
