Arabic Lists of the Byzantine Themes

Abstract

Of the themes of the Byzantine Empire there exists in Greek only one systematic account, the confused and discursive work of Constantine Porphyrogennetos, from which little trustworthy information as to the history of the themes before the accession of the Macedonian dynasty can be gathered. The same author has also preserved a table of precedence drawn up by Philotheos the protospatharios in the year 899, which includes the generals of the various themes existing at that time; and he has himself given us a record of the salaries paid to the generals in the time of Leo VI. This lack of information may, however, be in part supplied from the Arab geographers, who provide us with five catalogues of the themes, the earliest of which, that of Ibn Khurdadhbah, is fifty years earlier than the list of Philotheos and about one hundred years earlier than Constantine's work. With this catalogue that of Al Idrisi (1154) is practically identical. The other three are that of Ibn Al Fakih Al Hamadhani (circ. 902), preserved in the Geographical Dictionary of Yakut (1224), that of Kudama (circ. 930), and that contained in the Khitab Al Tanbih wal Ishraf (Book of celebration and observation) of Al Mas‘udi (956). Of these descriptions those of Ibn Khurdadhbah and Kudama have been translated into French by Prof. De Goeje, and that of Al Mas‘udi by M. Carra de Vaux; of that of Ibn Al Fakih I give a translation below.