Today's episode is brought to you by audible.com and my recommendation is Gentlemen of the Road

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Hello everyone and welcome to the history of by Zantium episode 121, the Roman army in 900 AD.

Last episode we discussed the growth of landed magnates across Anatolia. One of the

positives of this development was that the Roman army had experienced motivated commanders to

take them on the offensive. Today we need to cover all the other changes within the Roman

military across the last 100 years. Once you've absorbed those you will be fully prepared to enjoy

the coming century of Byzantine brilliance. As usual we need to return to the Emperor Nysephorus

who was not only in charge back in 802 AD but also reformed everything he could get his hands on.

As you may recall the Vassilefs secured a peace treaty with the caliphate and then took on the

bulgars with all the energy he could muster. Though this culminated in the disaster at Pliska,

prior to that Nysephorus had enacted some very significant reforms.

The Emperor had ordered families from across Anatolia including whole regiments of soldiers to move

to Europe. Once there he found lands for them and registered them with the local army.

Though unpopular the placement of these troops in Greece and Thrace was a success.

The themes of the area held firm for the next century. They maintained their territorial integrity

and began the conversion and romanization of the local Slav populations.

As I mentioned at the time what Nysephorus did was probably create the first actual themes

as in provinces defended by a locally supported army. Let's back up for one second. The first

reference to the themes comes from our old friend Theophaneis when talking about Heraclius.

Just before the Emperor left on his six-year campaign against the Sassanids he gathered his army

...