ABSTRACT
The causes of the excellence and efficiency of the Byzantine armies are not hard to discover. In courage they were equal to their enemies; in discipline, organisation, and armament far superior. The Byzantine patrician added theory to empiric knowledge, by the study of the works of Maurice, of Leo, of Nicephorus Phocas, and of other authors whose books survive in name alone. The Byzantine army of the seventh and following centuries may be said to owe its peculiar form to two reorganisations, one in the last quarter of the sixth century, the other a generation later at the end of the reign of Heraclius. Cibyra was a small place, and why it gave its name to the theme was a constant puzzle to later Byzantine authorities. Great as was the wealth of Byzantine empire, it could not have kept up one hundred thousand regular cavalry—as would have been the case if fifteen themes had each owned a full establishment.
