•Thema (Greek: singular – θέμα, plural – θέματα themata), was the main local administrative unit of the Byzantine Empire for approximately seven centuries. The word means military territory. The Thema system was established in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, replacing the earlier main local unit, the Roman diakos system, which had been established by the Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine I.
The reason for this division was that it allowed local governors to command the troops in their regions, declare themselves autonomous emperors, and attempt to seize central authority from the local troops. This system generally produced satisfactory results for 300 years in every region of the Byzantine Empire.
The term “thema” has two different meanings. It refers both to a type of military region and to local administrative units. The theme was the organization of the plots of land granted to soldiers for farming. Technically, the soldiers were military units formed to fight under the command of a strategos (governor). They were not the owners of the land they were given and cultivated; the land belonged to the state. The soldiers who worked the land had the right to harvest and to receive the produce and the profits from it.
The theme system, which had been constantly shocked by the decline of the Byzantine Empire, became very difficult to implement because many of the old regions were lost, especially in the border regions, and because many of the regions in these areas were constantly changing hands. On the other hand, the Franks, who had captured Constantinople and established the Latin Empire with the Fourth Crusade, established feudal states by applying a medieval hierarchical system similar to the Frankish apanage system, which was attached to this empire. This also contributed to the collapse of the theme system.
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