The settlement of the Mardaites and their military-administrative position in the themata of the West: A chronology

Abstract

The paper discusses questions about the chronology of the settlement of Mardaite soldiers in the Balkans and their military-administrative position in the themata of the West: Peloponnesus, Cephalonia and Nicopolis. It presents arguments in favor of the hypothesis of the Mardaite settlement in Peloponnesus as the result of the colonization policy of Nicepho­rus I in the early 9th century. This view largely rests on information contained in the Chronicle of Monemvasia, a source hereto unused in discussions about the Mardaites. The Mardaites were moved in the territory of the themata of Nicopolis and Cephalonia at the close of the same century in a bid to reinforce Byzantine positions on the eastern coast of the Ionian Sea at the time of the Arab threat to this region. Finally, in the concluding passages the author touches on the military-administrative status of Mardaites in the themata of the West, who operated in units headed by tourmarchai, comparing them to other ethnic tourmai in the Byzantine Empire. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177032: Tradition, Innovation and Identity in the Byzantine World]

Keywords

• Mardaites
• themata of the West
• Peloponnesus
• Cephalonia
• Nicopolis
• tourmarchai