•The Tema System and its Historical Background The theme (Greek: tekil – θέμα, plural themata), was the main local administrative unit of the Byzantine Empire for approximately seven centuries. The word means military district. The theme system replaced 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 with the local troops. This system usually produced satisfactory results for 300 years in each region of the Byzantine Empire.
The term “thema” has two different meanings. It both describes a kind of military region and a local administrative unit. The theme was the organization of the parcels of land given to the soldiers to cultivate. 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 cultivated the land had the right to harvest the land 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, as many old regions were lost, new regions were not conquered, and many regions, especially in the border areas, were constantly changing hands. On the other hand, the Franks, who 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 further contributed to the collapse of the theme system.
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