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Subdivisions of the Byzantine Empire

Subdivisions of the Byzantine Empire were administrative units of the Eastern Roman or
Byzantine Empire (330–1453). The Empire had a developed administrative system, which can be
divided into three major periods: the late Roman/early Byzantine, which was a continuation and
evolution of the system begun by the emperors Diocletian and Constantine the Great, which gradually
evolved into the middle Byzantine, where the theme system predominated alongside a restructured
central bureaucracy, and the late Byzantine, where the structure was more varied and decentralized
and where feudal elements appeared.[1][2][3]

Early period: 4th–7th centuries

The classical administrative model, as exemplified by the Notitia Dignitatum, divided the late Roman
Empire into provinces, which in turn were grouped into dioceses and then into praetorian prefectures.

The late Roman administrative system remained intact until the 530s, when Justinian I (r. 527–565)
undertook his administrative reforms. He effectively abolished the dioceses, merged smaller
provinces and created new types of jurisdictions like the quaestura exercitus, which combined civil
with military authority, thus overturning the main principle of the Diocletianic system.

Under Maurice (r. 582–602), this was carried a step further with the exarchates of Italy and Africa,
which became effectively semi-autonomous territories.

Middle period: 7th–12th centuries

The traditional administrative system faced a severe challenge in the first half of the 7th century,
when the Muslim conquests and the invasion of the Balkans by the Slavs led to extensive territorial
loss. The only major contiguous territory remaining to the Empire was Asia Minor, and there in the
period 640–660 the first themes (themata, sing. thema) were established. Initially these were simply
military jurisdictions, reflecting the area that each of the Byzantine army's field armies occupied;
underneath the themes and their strategoi, the old provinces continued to serve as the main
administrative and fiscal units. Gradually however, the themes superseded the provinces, the last
vestiges of which were abolished in the early 9th century inspired in part by the Hellenistic pagarchies
and nomarchies of late Roman Egypt. Each theme had a regular and simple structure, being divided
along military lines into tourmai, droungoi and banda. The droungos however was only a military,
not an administrative division.

Alongside the themes, other types of provincial units existed. Peripheral territories, often with a
strong maritime character like Crete, Crimea or Cephallenia were run by archons as in classical Greek
times and are hence known as archontates (archontiai, sing. archontia). Along the eastern frontier
with the Caliphate, distinct border provinces were created, the kleisourai. In the Balkans, Slavic tribes
(Sclaveni) that came under Byzantine authority were usually allowed some form of limited self-
governance under archons of their own. By the 10th century however, most of the archontates and
kleisourai had been raised to themes themselves.
With the great military expansion of the 10th and early 11th centuries, new themes were established as
land was recovered from the Arabs in the East and after the conquest of Bulgaria. Many of the new
themes in the East were smaller than the old, comprising only a fortified town and its immediate area.
Garrisoned chiefly by Armenians, these became known as the "Armenian" themes in contrast to the
older, larger "Roman" themes. From ca. 970 until the mid-11th century, another military and
administrative level appeared: regional commands which grouped several themes under a general
termed duke (doux) or catepan (katepano) and hence usually rendered as duchies or catepanates in
English.

In the Komnenian period, the themes continued to exist, now with a doux at their head. However,
mainly in Greece, the themes dissolved into the smaller local fiscal and administrative units, the
horia, episkepseis and chartoularata, which were tied to specific agencies and bureaux of the fiscal
bureaucracy, as well as to individual magnates. The Komnenian system survived until the sack of
Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

Late period: 13th–15th centuries

Following the dissolution of the Byzantine state after the Fourth Crusade, its Byzantine Greek
successor states maintained many of its features and structure.

The themes survived in the Empire of Nicaea and the post-1261 restored Byzantine Empire as a
generic term for a territorial and fiscal circumscription. These were divided into katepanikia, which
usually were little more than a town, where the governor or kephale ("head") resided, with its
surrounding countryside. Minor kephalai were sometimes grouped into larger jurisdictions which
were then placed under a "universal head" (katholike kephale).

The 14th century also saw the creation of several despotates as appanages for members of the imperial
family, the most famous and long-lasting of which was the Despotate of the Morea.

In the Empire of Trebizond, the old banda of the theme of Chaldia remained extant, and formed the
country's sole administrative subdivision.

Terminology
Byzantine administrative terminology was initially based on Roman terms for various administrative
offices and units, with common variants in both Latin and Greek languages. Since the Roman
conquest, the Latin term for province (Latin: provincia) had an equivalent in eastern, Greek-speaking
parts of the Empire. In the Greek language, province was called eparchy (Greek: ἐπαρχία, eparchia).
That term was used both colloquially and officially, in Roman legal acts that were issued in the Greek
language. In the same time, provincial governor was called eparch (Greek: ἔπαρχος, eparchos).
Similar terms were employed for later praetorian prefects (Greek: ἔπαρχος τοῦ πραιτωρίου, "eparch of
the praetorium"), who were in charge of the Empire's praetorian prefectures, and also to the Eparch
of Constantinople, the city's urban prefect. Since the 7th century, the old provincial administration
was gradually replaced by the thematic system. Even after that however, the term eparch remained in
use until the 9th century as designation for the senior administrative official of each thema, under the
governing strategos. Thereafter, eparchs were usually appointed as city governors, the most
important amongst them still being the Eparch of Constantinople, whose office had wide-ranging
powers and functioned continuously until the 13th century.[4][5]
 Name Greek name Type First Last

eparchy traditional rendering of

ἐπαρχία civil province early 9th century
("province") the Roman provincia

regional group of
diocese διοίκησις 290s 6th/7th centuries
provinces
praetorian ἐπαρχότης / ὑπαρχία large supra-regional
330s 6th/7th centuries
prefecture τῶν πραιτωρίων circumscription

quaestura
military-civil province 536
exercitus

698 (Carthage)/751
exarchate ἐξαρχᾶτον military-civil province 580s/590s
(Ravenna)
thema θέμα military-civil province 640s/660s

kleisoura κλεισούρα military province

small-scale local
archontate ἀρχοντία
district
tourma τούρμα / τοῦρμα military-civil province

bandon
βάνδον military-civil province
("banner")

katepanikion κατεπανίκιον military-civil province

References
1. Ostrogorsky 1956.
2. Maksimović 1988.
3. Krsmanović 2008.
4. Ostrogorsky 1956, p. 221.
5. Mason 1974, p. 81, 84-86, 138-139.

Sources
Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Krsmanović, Bojana (2008). The Byzantine
Byzantine State (https://books.google.com/bo Province in Change: On the Threshold
oks?id=Bt0_AAAAYAAJ). Oxford: Basil Between the 10th and the 11th Century (http
Blackwell. s://books.google.com/books?id=kjsjAQAAIAA
Maksimović, Ljubomir (1988). The Byzantine J). Belgrade: Institute for Byzantine Studies.
Provincial Administration under the Mason, Hugh J. (1974). Greek Terms for
Palaiologoi (https://books.google.com/books?i Roman Institutions: A Lexicon and Analysis (h
d=uPocAAAAYAAJ). Amstardam: Hakkert. ttps://books.google.com/books?id=k2QPAQA
AMAAJ). Toronto: Hakkert.

Further reading
Ferluga, Jadran (1957). "L'archontat de Dalmatie" (https://books.google.com/books?id=1NwZAAA
AIAAJ). Actes du X. Congrès international d'études byzantines. İstanbul: Comité d'organisation.
pp. 307–315.
 Ferluga, Jadran (1964). "Sur la date de la création du thème de Dyrrachium" (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=Kjg1AAAAIAAJ). Actes du XIIe Congrès international d'études byzantines.
Beograd: Naučno delo. pp. 83–92.
Ferluga, Jadran (1976). Byzantium on the Balkans: Studies on the Byzantine administration and
the Southern Slavs from the VIIth to the XIIth centuries (https://books.google.com/books?id=8TcK
AQAAIAAJ). Amsterdam: Hakkert.
Ferluga, Jadran (1977). "Les iles dalmates dans l'Empire byzantin" (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=HNXkAAAAMAAJ). Byzantinische Forschungen. 5: 35–71.
Ferluga, Jadran (1978). L'amministrazione Bizantina in Dalmazia (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=SXwMAQAAMAAJ). Venezia: Deputazione di storia patria per le Venezie.
Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1991) [1983]. The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the
Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century (https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0NBxG9Id58C). Ann
Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Kislinger, Ewald (2011). "Dyrrhachion und die Küsten von Epirus und Dalmatien im frühen
Mittelalter - Beobachtungen zur Entwicklungder byzantinischen Oberhoheit" (https://www.academi
a.edu/6131843). Millennium. 8: 313–352.
Komatina, Predrag (2016). "Military, Administrative and Religious Strongholds on the Danubian
Frontier: The Example of Morava and Braničevo" (https://www.academia.edu/28290358).
Processes of Byzantinisation and Serbian Archaeology. Belgrade: Institute for Byzantine Studie.
pp. 103–107.
Snively, Carolyn S. (2005). "Dacia Mediterranea and Macedonia Secunda in the Sixth Century: A
Question of Influence on Church Architecture" (http://www.nisandbyzantium.org.rs/doc/zbornik3/P
DFIII/Carolin.pdf) (PDF). Niš and Byzantium. 3: 213–224.
Whitby, Michael (1988). The Emperor Maurice and his Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on
Persian and Balkan warfare (https://books.google.com/books?id=xdxQAQAAIAAJ). Oxford:
Clarendon Press.

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