Byzantine Theme Administration

Timeline

1. 527–565Frontier districts of Asia Minor · Byzantine EmpireJustinian I maintained frontier troops under regional commanders (magister militum per Armeniam, etc.) on the eastern and Balkan frontiers; provincial finance and military command were not yet fully unified, but standing garrison districts named by region had appeared, laying the organizational groundwork for the theme system.
2. c. 640–680Constantinople · Byzantine EmpireAfter the Arab conquest of Syria and Egypt, the imperial field armies withdrew into Anatolia and were organized by station into the Armenian, Anatolian, and Opsician themes. The Armenian theme is first attested in 667, the Anatolian in 669, the Opsician in 680. Newer research holds this was a reorganization of existing field armies in the 640s–660s, not a single creation by Maurice in the late 6th century.
3. 680–900Anatolian theme districts · Asia MinorFrom the late 7th to the 9th century, themes such as Thrace, Greece, and Sicily were successively established, and the older Anatolian themes were further subdivided. Only from the late 8th to the mid-9th century was civil administration and finance fully reorganized by theme, forming the classical combined military-civil form.