•The Tema System and its Historical Background The theme (Greek: singular – θέμα, plural – θέματα themata), was the main local administrative unit of the Byzantine Empire for approximately seven centuries. The word means military district. The theme system was established in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, replacing the earlier main local unit, the Roman diocese, 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 to both a kind of military region and to a local administrative unit. The theme was the organization of the land plots granted to the 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 the crops and to receive the produce and the profits from it.
According to the theme system, the Byzantine Empire was constantly shocked by the decline of the empire, and its implementation became very difficult because many of the old regions were lost, especially in the border regions, and most of the regions there were constantly changing hands. On the other hand, the Franks, who captured Constantinople and established the Latin Empire with the Fourth Crusade, established subordinate states by applying a medieval hierarchical system similar to the Frankish apanage system, which was attached to this empire. This was another reason for the collapse of the theme system.
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