Defence and Provincial Administration: the Komnenian System

The system of defence as re-established ultimately under Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) was a continuation of the methods he had found to be most successful in his wars to repel the Pechenegs, Normans and Seljuk Turks in the years 1081-1094. Strategy in the broader sense in the opening years of his rule did not exist: the emperor had to respond to a series of emergencies in different parts of the empire on an entirely reactive basis, although it is apparent that the Balkan theatre preoccupied him in the opening years of his rule. But imperial political control in the Balkans was achieved by 1094. The Normans were hemmed in to a small enclave on the Illyrian coast; a little before this, the Pechenegs were crushed at the battle of Lebounion and placed under treaty or incorporated into the imperial armies. The stabilisation of the situation in this theatre brought a return to the administrative arrangements of the middle of the eleventh century, and it was now the Balkan provinces which provided the resources with which the emperor could begin to reassert imperial authority in the east. Manuel I placed a great deal of emphasis on defending imperial interests in the Balkans, on protecting the hinterland behind the frontier zone, and on maintaining a firm control of the Danube frontier with its constituent fortresses, and this demonstrates the recognition by the imperial government that the resources of the area were essential to the empire’s financial and political survival. The areas to the south of the Danube were kept more or less depopulated, in order to discourage raids from either the Hungarians or the Galician Russians to the north.

Imperial control in western Asia Minor was virtually nonexistent when Alexios I seized the throne in 1081. By skilfully exploiting the armies of the First Crusade, however, Alexios began a slow recovery of imperial territory. A new frontier was established both to mark out the key points to be defended and to establish a safe area from which resources could be extracted and within which economic life could safely be carried on. Under Alexios numerous new commands were established in both eastern and western theatres to consolidate this progress: in the west, Abydos (1086), Anchialos (1087), Crete (1088-1089), Philippopolis (1094-1096), Belgrade (1096) and Karpathos (c. 1090-1100); in the east, Trebizond (1091), Nikaia, Ephesos, Smyrna (all in 1097), Cyprus (1099), Korykos and Seleukeia (1103), Korypho (1104/5) and Samosata (1100).

Since the tenth century the high command had been divided into an eastern and a western section. These sectors were under the supreme command of a megas domestikos, or Grand Duke, of east and west respectively. Defence was placed in the hands of local lords and their retinues, or specific groups of landholders with military obligations of one sort or another. Foreigners continued to be settled on imperial lands under an obligation for military service. Pechenegs were given lands in Macedonia by Alexios I; Serbs and Pechenegs were given lands in Anatolia under John II, and Cuman soldiers were given military estates in Macedonia during the reign of Manuel. This tradition lasted until the end of the empire. Resources for particular purposes were organised territorially. The chartoularios of the stable (also known as the megas chartoularios) was responsible for providing pack-animals and horses for the armies, and under Alexios and his successors managed five major estates in the Balkan regions of the empire. These estates were known as chartoularata, and were in effect the equivalent of the older aplekta and metata of Asia Minor, under the logothete of the herds, which had had similar functions before the 1070s.

The imperial navy remained important, in spite of increasing reliance on Venetian or other Italian warships through treaty arrangements. Commanded by the megas doux, or Grand Duke, the fleet was supported by revenues drawn from specific estates set aside in the provinces of Hellas-Peloponnese, the Aegean and Cyprus, and the collection of these revenues came under the Grand Duke’s authority.

Substantial lost areas were recovered in the period from the death of Alexios I in 1118 to the 1160s, and already by the 1140s the empire could push onto the central Anatolian plateau itself. New themata were established. These were military and civil districts which replaced the older thematic regions of the pre-Seljuk years. Under John II a thema of Thrakesion was re-established, geographically smaller than its predecessor, as well as the new thema of Mylasa and Melanoudion (made up from the northern parts of the old Kibyrrhaiot thema and the southern sections of the old Thrakesion). Under Manuel I, the thema of Neokastra was established to the north, based around Atramyttion, Pergamon and Khliara; while many small forts to cover major routes from the Anatolian plateau were built and garrisoned by locally-raised militias. The term thema, which meant simply a province, no longer had any direct military implications. By the 1180s there were thematic provinces from Chaldia and Trebizond in the east, on the Pontic coast, westwards through the districts of Paphlagonia/Boukellarion, Optimaton, Nikomedeia, Opsikion, Neokastra, Thrakesion, Mylasa/Melanoudion, Kibyrrhaiotai and Cilicia. The forces stationed in each of these regions were commanded by ‘dukes’ - Byzantine doukes - who were also the governors of their districts.

This policy of gradual expansion came to an abrupt end in 1176, in a strategically premature and tactically misjudged attempt to eliminate organised Turkish opposition in central Asia Minor. The imperial field army, with the emperor present, was ambushed and defeated at the battle of Myriokephalon on its way to lay siege to the Seljuk capital of Ikonion (Konya). This was an extremely expensive enterprise, and the army was accompanied by a huge siege-train which was utterly destroyed. The effort was thus wasted, and as a result of changes in the international situation and rebellion in the Balkans, the empire was never again in a position to go onto the offensive in Asia

Approximate line of frontier c. 1118

Maximum extent of imperial territory under Manuel I

300 kilometres 200 miles

Map 10.1 Defence and administration: the Komnenian system.

Minor on this scale again. ‘Turkification’ and the Islamisation of central Asia Minor were already well advanced. Gradually excluded from Asia Minor over the following 150 years, the empire became an increasingly European state.