•The emergence and historical background of the Thema system The 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 district. 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 as independent emperors, and attempt to seize central authority from the local troops. This system generally produced favorable results for 300 years in each region of the Byzantine Empire.
The term “thema” has two different meanings. It refers to both a kind of military region and to the local administrative units of the civilian population. The theme was the organization of the parcels of land granted to the soldiers for farming. Technically, the soldiers were military units organized to fight under the command of a strategos (governor). They were not the owners of the land they were given and farmed; the land belonged to the state. The soldiers who worked the land had the right to harvest the crops and to receive the yield and profit from the land they worked.
According to the theme system, the Byzantine Empire was constantly shocked by the decline of the empire, and it became very difficult to implement because many 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 also led to the collapse of the theme system.
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