Organization
The term thema was ambiguous, referring both to a form of military tenure and to an administrative division. A theme was an arrangement of plots of land given for farming to the soldiers. The soldiers were still technically a military unit, under the command of a strategos, and they did not own the land they worked as it was still controlled by the state. Therefore, for its use the soldiers' pay was reduced. By accepting this proposition, the participants agreed that their descendants would also serve in the military and work in a theme, thus simultaneously reducing the need for unpopular conscription as well as cheaply maintaining the military. It also allowed for the settling of conquered lands, as there was always a substantial addition made to public lands during a conquest.
The commander of a theme, however, did not only command his soldiers. He united the civil and military jurisdictions in the territorial area in question. Thus the division set up by Diocletian between civil governors (praesides etc.) and military commanders (duces etc.) was abolished, and the Empire returned to a system much more similar to that of the Republic or the Principate, where provincial governors had also commanded the armies in their area.
The following table illustrates the thematic structure as found in the Thracesian Theme, circa 902-936:
| Structure of the Thema Thrakēsiōn | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Number of personnel | Number of subordinate units | Officer in command | |||||||
| Thema | 9,600 | 4 Tourmai | Strategos | |||||||
| Tourma | 2,400 | 6 Droungoi | Tourmarches | |||||||
| Droungos | 400 | 2 Banda | Droungarios | |||||||
| Bandon | 200 | 2 Kentarchiai | Count | |||||||
| Kentarchia | 100 | 10 Kontoubernia | Kentarches/Hekatontarches | |||||||
| 50 | 5 Kontoubernia | Pentekontarches | ||||||||
| Kontoubernion | 10 | 1 "Vanguard" + 1 "Rear Guard" | Dekarchos | |||||||
| "Vanguard" | 5 | n/a | Pentarches | |||||||
| "Rear Guard" | 4 | n/a | Tetrarches | |||||||
Read more about this topic: Theme (Byzantine District)
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The Red Cross in its nature, it aims and purposes, and consequently, its methods, is unlike any other organization in the country. It is an organization of physical action, of instantaneous action, at the spur of the moment; it cannot await the ordinary deliberation of organized bodies if it would be of use to suffering humanity, ... [ellipsis in original] it has by its nature a field of its own.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“The organization controlling the material equipment of our everyday life is such that what in itself would enable us to construct it richly plunges us instead into a poverty of abundance, making alienation all the more intolerable as each convenience promises liberation and turns out to be only one more burden. We are condemned to slavery to the means of liberation.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)