By the middle of the seventh century the Byzantine Empire had lost Syria and Egypt in a matter of years and, with the Sasanian wars barely behind it, faced a new power advancing from the east. Anatolia was the largest contiguous territory still in its hands, and the empire's future depended on how that peninsula was defended. One of the first links in that defensive order was the Armeniac theme (Armeniakon), whose capital was Amaseia, modern Amasya. The theme was a broad military and administrative district in northeastern Anatolia facing the frontier with Muslim Armenia; Amaseia was the city where its commander resided and from which the army was administered.

The Origins of the Theme System

The provincial order inherited from late Rome rested on a separation of civil and military duties. That separation became untenable in the years when Egypt and Syria were lost in rapid succession. Maurice had earlier combined civil and military authority in the hands of a single exarch at Ravenna and Carthage, and a similar solution was now adopted in Anatolia. The Asian territories that remained to the empire were divided into large districts, each headed by a strategos, and what survived of the old civil administration was subordinated to this general. The first four themes were the Armeniacs, the Anatolics, the Thracesians and the Opsikion. The first two formed the front line of Anatolian defence: the Armeniac theme bordered Muslim Armenia, the Anatolic theme bordered Syria.

When the theme system was founded was long disputed. For much of the twentieth century it was attributed to Heraclius (610-641); Georg Ostrogorsky based this view on a line of Theophanes recording that Heraclius came "to the lands of the themes" in 622. More recent research places the foundation between the 640s and 660s, in the reign of Constans II (641-668). The same research shows that the word theme originally referred to the armies themselves rather than to a territory, and that it was transferred to the districts where those armies were quartered only in the later seventh or early eighth century. The older account saw the system as the creation of an entirely new army of farmer-soldiers working state land; more recent studies argue that it was an extension of sixth-century trends and that its social impact was more limited than once supposed.

The origin of the Armeniac theme is comparatively clear. It emerged from the territory of Lesser Armenia (Armenia Minor) and took its name from the field army that had been under the old command of the magister militum per Armeniam. Withdrawn after the defeats in the east, this army was settled in Pontus, Paphlagonia and the northern part of Cappadocia. The sources mention the theme unambiguously for the first time in 667-668, during the revolt of its commander Saborios. A record of "George, tourmarches of the Armeniacs" in 629, during Heraclius' Sasanian campaigns, suggests that the arrangement may have begun earlier, but this single record does not settle the matter. The next trace is the seals of the imperial warehouses (apothekai) in the early eighth century: the wording changes from "Koloneia and Kamacha" in 702-704 to "Koloneia, Kamacha and Armenia IV" in 713-715, and to "Koloneia and all the provinces of the Christ-loving Armeniacs" in 717-718.

Amaseia as the Capital

Amaseia was the capital of the Armeniac theme. The city had been one of the centres of the Pontic kingdom, was attached in Roman times first to Galatia and then to Cappadocia, and in the second century received the titles "metropolis" and "first city". In the Byzantine period its population was predominantly Greek-speaking. Its valley, ringed by steep rock, and its fortress on the slope of Mount Harşena made it easy to defend and, at the same time, a fertile basin able to supply an army. The commander's headquarters, the army's administration and the preparation of campaigns were therefore concentrated at Amaseia.

The theme was governed by a strategos. The strategoi of the Armeniac, Anatolic and Thracesian themes ranked in the highest tier of strategoi and drew an annual salary of 40 pounds of gold. In the ninth century the Armeniac theme fielded about 9,000 men and encompassed 17 fortresses. This force was divided into districts called tourmai and, below them, into smaller units, and it was distributed along the line of Pontus and Cappadocia. Among its fortresses, the castle of Amaseia on Harşena served both as a lookout commanding the valley and as a refuge in time of danger. The city's geography developed in step with this military function.

Soldiers, Land and Settlement

Under the theme system a soldier worked a plot of land received from the state and in return owed military service. The soldiers did not own this land, which is why their pay was kept low, and service passed from father to son. In this way the army was maintained without the unpopular recourse to conscription, and conquered or vacated lands were resettled. The soldiers who settled around Amaseia gradually became natives of the region, and the population and economy of the Armeniac theme took shape around this arrangement. The organisation of the civil fisc by theme districts began only at the end of the eighth century and was completed in the middle of the ninth. From that point the strategos became the "classical" theme governor, combining military and fiscal authority.

The Revolt of Saborios

The political weight of the Armeniac theme was first displayed in 667. Constans II had been living for years in Syracuse in Sicily, having left the capital to his young son Constantine IV. The raids sent by Caliph Muawiyah struck Anatolia, and the Armeniac theme in particular. Saborios, whom Theophanes calls Persian and whom most modern scholars consider Armenian, was then the theme's strategos. His name is regarded as a Greek rendering of the Persian Shapur. Since most of the soldiers of the other themes were with the emperor in Sicily, he rebelled in late 667.

To secure his rear, Saborios sent one of his commanders, Sergios, to Damascus to Muawiyah. The government in the capital sent the eunuch Andrew to the caliph, but Andrew's offer could not match that of the rebel, who, in Theophanes' words, promised "the entire public revenues", and Muawiyah agreed to give Saborios troops. Andrew nevertheless had Sergios, who had insulted him, seized at a pass near Arabissos in Cilicia by troops loyal to the emperor; Sergios was castrated and impaled. With his eastern flank secure, Saborios took most of Anatolia, marched west, and camped at Hexapolis (Hadrianopolis) in Bithynia to await the Arab army. As he prepared to face the government army under the patrikios Nikephoros, his horse bolted and he died when his head struck a city gate. Deprived of their leader, the Armeniac troops submitted at once. By the time the Arab army arrived the revolt was effectively over; the Arabs nevertheless raided as far as the Bosporus and captured Amorion, which the Byzantines retook the following winter.

The revolt cost the empire no territory. Its importance lay in being the first recorded rebellion of a theme army; similar ones followed one after another through the rest of the seventh century and throughout the eighth. Saborios' death became in Byzantine and Syriac sources a standard example of the end awaiting anyone who defied the lawful emperor and dealt with the infidels.

The Eighth Century and Artabasdos

In the eighth century the power of the Armeniac strategoi became directly entangled in the struggles for the throne in the capital. During the turbulent years of 695-715 the readiness of theme generals to rebel was plain. The best-known Armeniac commander of the age is Artabasdos. Of Armenian descent, he was appointed strategos of the theme by Anastasius II around 713. After Anastasius fell, he came to an agreement with Leo, the strategos of the Anatolic theme, to overthrow Theodosius III; the agreement was sealed by the betrothal of Leo's daughter Anna to Artabasdos, and the marriage took place after Leo ascended the throne as Leo III in March 717. Artabasdos received the rank of kouropalates and became count of the Opsikion, without giving up his earlier command.

In June 741, as Constantine V, who had succeeded Leo III, was crossing Anatolia to fight the Arabs on the eastern frontier, Artabasdos attacked him. Constantine fled to Amorion; Artabasdos took Constantinople with popular support and was proclaimed emperor. He gave his wife Anna the title of augusta, made his son Nikephoros co-emperor, and placed his other son Niketas at the head of the Armeniac theme. In this civil war the Armeniacs stood on the same side as the Opsikion and Thrace, while Constantine had the Cibyrrhaeot fleet and the Anatolic and Thracesian armies. The struggle ended in May 743 with the defeat of Artabasdos; the same year Constantine defeated Niketas as well and entered Constantinople on 2 November 743. Artabasdos and his sons were publicly blinded and confined in the Chora Monastery. Theophanes and Patriarch Nikephoros write that Artabasdos restored the veneration of icons, but contemporary documents offer very little support for this view.

The suppression of the revolt led to the first major reorganisation of the Anatolian themes. The over-mighty Opsikion was divided into the Bucellarian and Optimatoi themes, and the duty of guarding the emperor passed to professional units called tagmata. The size of the Armeniac theme and its position on the frontier had made its commanders a threat to the empire as much as a source of stability.

Division in the Ninth Century

The same size became the reason for the theme's fragmentation in the ninth century. In the south and east, small frontier districts (kleisourai) appeared against Arab raids. Of these, Charsianon and Cappadocia became first kleisourai and then full themes. The fortress that gave Charsianon its name had been mentioned since 638; the Arabs captured it in 730, and it continued to change hands in the following century. In the eighth century it was the seat of one of the tourmai of the Armeniac theme; between 863 and 873 it was raised to a full theme with territory taken from the neighbouring Bucellarian, Armeniac and Cappadocian themes. Around 819 the coastal districts of Paphlagonia and Chaldia were detached, and then the region of Koloneia became a separate command, first under a doux and, by 863, under a full strategos. What remained was a small Armeniac theme covering western Pontus. Amaseia remained the centre of this reduced theme, but its role as the "eastern shield" had passed to the new frontier commands.

A detail from the first half of the ninth century shows how important the Armeniac command was still held to be. When Leo V (813-820) took the throne, he gave Manuel the Armenian the post of strategos of the Anatolic or the Armeniac theme; the sources do not make clear which. The Anatolic theme was the most senior of the theme governorships, and Leo himself had held it before his accession. When the great revolt of Thomas broke out, the strategos of the Armeniacs was Olbianos; the Anatolics joined the rebellion. Manuel was an uncle of Empress Theodora.

The Tenth Century and the Dissolution of the System

In the tenth century, as Byzantium went on the offensive in the east, the character of the themes changed. Conquered territories were organised into smaller themes; this new class was called "minor" or "Armenian" themes and was distinguished from the traditional "great" or "Roman" themes. Most consisted of a fortress and its surroundings, with a garrison of about a thousand men, mostly infantry, under a junior strategos. These themes were unsuited to resisting major invasions or to conducting long offensive campaigns on their own. For that reason, from the 960s more professional regiments were stationed on the frontier, and commands under a doux or katepano were set up to direct them. In the east the first three such commands were established by John Tzimiskes at Antioch, Chaldia and Mesopotamia.

These developments led to the neglect of the old theme armies of inner Anatolia, the Armeniac included. From the early eleventh century, military service was increasingly commuted into cash payments. The process left Byzantine defence without strategic depth; dependence on foreign mercenaries, and the quarrel between the civil bureaucracy in Constantinople and the landholding military elites, added to the damage. By the time of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the army was in deep crisis, and after the battle it collapsed completely. The fact that Charsianon was in the tenth century home to great military families such as the Argyroi and the Maleinoi, and that after 1045 a large number of Armenians, including King Gagik II, were settled there, shows the social makeup of the former Armeniac lands in this period.

Amaseia After Manzikert

The effective end of the Armeniac theme came after Manzikert. The Norman adventurer Roussel de Bailleul, with about three thousand Frankish and Norman heavy cavalry, seized lands in Galatia and Lycaonia as the empire's authority in Anatolia dissolved, and in 1073 founded an independent principality with Ancyra as its centre. The Byzantine army sent to subdue him was defeated in the battle at the bridge over the Sangarios (the Zompos Bridge). In time Roussel also established control over the former Armeniac territories and took cities such as Amaseia and Neokaisareia. It appears that he collected taxes, strengthened his military power through fortresses, and made agreements with local elites in return for protection against Turkmen raids. He was so popular among the locals that Alexios Komnenos, sent to capture him and later to become emperor, had to resort to a ruse in 1075.

An episode related in Anna Komnene's Alexiad is also tied to Amaseia. According to it, Alexios promised a large sum to take Roussel (Ourselios) from the hands of the Turkish commander Tutakh; but he had no money, and when he tried to raise it from the people of the city, serious unrest broke out. In the end Alexios made a speech and persuaded the people with a staged blinding of Roussel, and they paid. The account is likely to be biased, given the Alexiad's tendency to exalt the Komnenos.

After Roussel the region dissolved under Turkmen raids; only a few coastal fortresses held out. The sources relate that Amasya passed in 1075 to the Danishmendid Turkmen emirs after some seven centuries of Byzantine rule; as the Danishmendid capital, Amasya kept that position until Kilij Arslan II annexed the Danishmendid lands. The Komnenian dynasty managed to recover the coastal regions, but the Armeniac theme was never restored.

Lasting Traces

The history of the Armeniac theme explains what kind of place Amasya was from the seventh to the eleventh century. In this period the city was a frontier garrison, an administrative centre and, when required, a centre of power that shaped imperial politics. The fortress on Harşena was destroyed and rebuilt many times over the centuries under Pontic, Roman, Persian and Turkish rule; most of its walls still stand, and cisterns and water tanks can be seen inside. Even after the theme system disappeared, Amasya's geography did not lose the defensive value it had given the city.

Chronology

629: "George, tourmarches of the Armeniacs" is mentioned during Heraclius' Sasanian campaigns.

667-668: Revolt of the strategos Saborios; the first unambiguous mention of the theme.

717-718: Seal mentioning the Armeniacs.

741-743: Revolt of Artabasdos; Constantine V enters Constantinople on 2 November 743.

Around 819: Paphlagonia and Chaldia are detached from the theme.

863-873: Charsianon becomes a full theme; Koloneia is governed by a strategos by 863.

1071: Battle of Manzikert.

1073-1075: Roussel de Bailleul's rule, which includes Amaseia; Alexios Komnenos recovers control in 1075.

Bibliography

Other sources

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