Macedonia (theme) - Geography and Administration

Geography and Administration

The seat of the new theme was Adrianople (modern Edirne), and it comprised modern West Thrace (in Greece), the western parts of East Thrace (European Turkey), and the southern fringes of Northern Thrace (southern Bulgaria). The Arab geographers Ibn Khordadbeh (wrote ca. 847) and Ibn al-Faqih (wrote ca. 903), whose accounts are a major source on the Byzantine themes, mention that the theme of Macedonia (Maqaduniya) extended from the "Long Wall" (the Anastasian Wall) to the "lands of the Slavs" in the west, and from the Aegean and Marmara Seas to the borders of Bulgaria to the north. In later days, to the west it bounded the theme of Thessalonica and the later themes of Strymon and Boleron. Thus, the theme of Macedonia had no relation to the historical region of Macedonia, and when Byzantine sources of the 10th–12th centuries refer to "Macedonia", they mean the area of western Thrace. Hence, for instance, the emperor Basil I "the Macedonian" (r. 867–886) hailed from Thrace, and the Macedonian dynasty he founded was named after the theme of Macedonia.

Being derived from the theme of Thrace, Macedonia was counted along with it among the "Eastern" themes, which ranked higher in Byzantine hierarchy than the "European" themes. In the late 9th and 10th centuries, its strategos ranked in the second grade of thematic governors, above even that of Thrace. He received an annual salary of 36 pounds of gold (2,592 nomismata), and, according to the account of Ibn al-Faqih, in the late 9th century controlled 5,000 troops. A number of tagmatic soldiers were also permanently stationed in the theme. Strymon, which was originally a kleisoura of Macedonia, was split off sometime in the early 9th century, taking some 2,000 men (according to historian Warren Treadgold) along with it.

As with other themes, at least some of the administrative posts of Macedonia were sometimes combined with those of Thrace, especially in the 11th century, where numerous strategoi and judges (kritai) are attested holding jurisdiction over both themes.