The Byzantine Theme of Cherson (Crimea)

Mangup Kale  -  Byzantine Fortress in the Crimea and is 

located on a plateau about 9 miles due east of Sevastopol (ancient Chersones). 

The Roman Theme System

In Rome the province was the basic and largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy.  Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors. 

In the late empire the provinces were grouped originally into twelve dioceses, headed usually by a vicarius, who oversaw their affairs. Only the proconsuls and the urban prefect of Rome (and later Constantinople) were exempt from this, and were directly subordinated to the tetrarchs.

Justinian I made the next great changes in 534–536 by abolishing, in some provinces, the strict separation of civil and military authority that Diocletian had established. This process was continued on a larger scale with the creation of extraordinary Exarchates in the 580s.

The themes or themata were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire. They were established in the mid-7th century in the aftermath of the Muslim conquests of parts of Byzantine territory.

In most of the Empire, the old system continued to function until the 640s, when the eastern part of the Empire collapsed under the onslaught of the Muslim Caliphate. The rapid Muslim conquest of Syria and Egypt and consequent Byzantine losses in manpower and territory meant that the Empire found itself struggling for survival.

In order to respond to this unprecedented crisis, the Empire was drastically reorganized. The remaining imperial territory in Asia Minor was divided into four large themes, and although some elements of the earlier civil administration survived, they were subordinated to the governing general or stratēgos.

The traditional view holds that the establishment of the themes meant the creation of a new type of army. Instead of the old force, heavily reliant on foreign mercenaries, the new Byzantine army was mostly based on native farmer-soldiers living on state-leased military estates.

A theme was an arrangement of plots of land given for farming to the soldiers. The soldiers were still technically a military unit, under the command of a strategos, and they did not own the land they worked as it was still controlled by the state. Therefore, for its use the soldiers' pay was reduced. 

By accepting this proposition, the participants agreed that their descendants would also serve in the military and work in a theme, thus simultaneously reducing the need for unpopular conscription as well as cheaply maintaining the military. It also allowed for the settling of conquered lands, as there was always a substantial addition made to public lands during a conquest.

The Theme of Cherson

Formally called the Klimata, Cherson was a Byzantine theme (a military-civilian province) located in the southern Crimea, headquartered at Cherson.

The theme was officially established in the early 830s and was an important centre of Black Sea commerce. Despite the destruction of the city of Cherson in the 980s, the theme recovered and prospered, enduring until it became a part of the Empire of Trebizond after the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire in 1204.

Crimea in the "Regnum Bosporanum" during
Roman Emperor Trajan's conquests (98 to 117 AD).

Greek and Roman Crimea

Greek city-states began establishing colonies along the Black Sea coast of Crimea in the 7th or 6th century BC.  In the 5th century BC, Dorians from Heraclea Pontica founded the sea port of Chersonesos (in modern Sevastopol).

During the AD 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries, Taurica was host to Roman legions and colonists in Charax, Crimea. The Charax colony was founded under Vespasian with the intention of protecting Chersonesos and other Bosporean trade emporiums from the Scythians. 

The Roman colony was protected by a vexillatio of the Legio I Italica; it also hosted a detachment of the Legio XI Claudia at the end of the 2nd century. The camp was abandoned by the Romans in the mid-3rd century. This de facto province would have been controlled by the legatus of one of the Legions stationed in Charax.

Military Theme of Cherson in Crimea
In order to implement its policy in the northern Black Sea, Byzantium relied on maintaining control over Cherson and other regions along the southeastern coast of the Crimea, from which it kept an eye on developments and moves by potential enemies in the steppe of south Russia. Therefore, the Crimea was the key in a Byzantine early-warning system on the empire’s northern frontier. 

Byzantine Crimea

In the 6th century the Eastern Roman Empire again took control of the region under Justinian I.

In the 6th century, probably at the end of the reign of Justinian I, the status of Roman Crimea changed. Taurica became the Province of Chersonesos, which also included Bosporos and the southern coast of Crimea.

This enlargement of Byzantine Taurica resulted in the elevation of the ranks of its governors. In the second half of the 6th century, the military and civil authorities in the region were entrusted to the military deputy, "doux Chersonos".

The city of Chersonnesos was used by the Romans as a place of banishment: St. Clement of Rome was exiled there and first preached to Gospel. Another exile was Justinian II, who is said to have destroyed the city in revenge.

Most of Roman Crimea fell under Khazar overlordship in the late 7th century.

Emperor Theophilus, in the Chronicle of John Skylitzes.
Theophilus reestablished Roman rule in Crimea.

Byzantine authority was re-established by Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842), who displayed interest in the northern littoral of the Black Sea and especially his relations with the Khazars.

Petronas Kamateros is credited as the theme's first governor (strategos) in 840/1. The new province was at first called ta Klimata, "the regions/districts", but due to the prominence of the capital Cherson, by ca. 860 it was known even in official documents as the "Theme of Cherson".

The province played an important role in Byzantine relations with the Khazars and later, after the Khazar Khaganate's collapse, with the Pechenegs and the Rus'. It was a center for Byzantine diplomacy rather than military activity, since the military establishment in the theme seems to have been small and to have chiefly consisted of a locally-raised militia. Its weakness is underlined by the stipulation, in the Byzantine treaties with the Rus' of 945 and 971, of the latter's undertaking to defend it against the Volga Bulgars.

Cherson prospered greatly during the 9th–11th centuries as a centre of Black Sea commerce, despite the city's destruction by Vladimir of Kiev in 988/9. The city recovered quickly: the city's fortifications were restored and extended to the harbour in the early 11th century. At the same time, possibly after the defeat of Georgius Tzul in 1016, the theme was extended over the eastern Crimea as well, as evidenced by the styling of a certain Leo Aliates as "strategos of Cherson and Sougdaia" in 1059. The region however was lost again in the late 11th century to the Cumans. Almost nothing is known of Cherson in the 12th century, pointing to a rather tranquil period. 

Cherson and its province remained under Byzantine control until the dissolution of the Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when they passed under the sovereignty of the breakaway Empire of Trebizond (see Perateia).

Later in 1204, Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade and Cherson passed to the Byzantine successor state of Trebizond. But Cherson was allowed to become more and more distant from Byzantium because of Turkish pirates and the long distance of the sea. The other threat to the rule of Byzantium in the Crimea was the Genoese who rapidly began to take over the Crimea for their own commercial interests. 

By the middle of fourteenth century, almost all the peninsula was in Genoese hands. However Cherson's death blow didn't come from these traders, but from the barbarians the city had always fought against in the form of the armies of the Golden Horde who finally took the city in 1399 and completely destroyed it to the point that it was never again resettled. All that remains of this venerable city is a few ruins in the suburbs of the modern city of Sevastopol.

Theme Administration

The Theme of Cherson appears to have been organized in typical fashion, with the full array of thematic officials, of whom a tourmarches of Gothia is known at the turn of the 11th century, as well as the ubiquitous fiscal and customs officials known as kommerkiarioi. 

The cities of the theme, however, appear to have retained considerable autonomy in their own government, as exemplified by Cherson itself, which was administered by the local magnates (archontes) under a proteuon ("the first"). 

Cherson also retained the right to issue its own coins, having resumed minting under Emperor Michael III (r. 842–867), and was for a long time the only provincial mint outside Constantinople. Its autonomy is also evidenced by the fact that the imperial government paid annual subsidies (pakta) to the city leaders in the fashion of allied rulers, and in the advice of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos (r. 913–959) in his De Administrando Imperio to the local strategos concerning the possibility of a revolt in the city: he was to cease payment of the subsidies and relocate to some other city in the theme. In the late 11th century, the theme was governed by a katepano.

Cherson and its province remained under Byzantine control until the dissolution of the Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when they passed under the sovereignty of the breakaway Empire of Trebizond.

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(Themes)      (Roman provinces)      (History of Crimea)

(Roman Crimea)      (Cherson)      (blacksea.ehw.gr)

(Xenophon-mil.org)      (Roman and Byzantine Crimea)

(Chersonesus)     

The Byzantine Crimean Fortress of Mangup



Mangup Kale

Byzantine Fortress in the Crimea

Mangup (Ukrainian: Мангуп, Russian: Мангуп, Crimean Tatar: Mangup) also known as Mangup Kale is a historic fortress in Crimea, located on a plateau about 9 miles due east of Sevastopol (ancient Chersones).

In medieval times it was known as Doros, later it was given the Kipchak name Mangup (kale means fortress).

Roman Crimea

Roman Crimea is the area of the Crimean Peninsula that was under control of the Roman Empire and mostly coincided with the Bosporan Kingdom.  For nearly five centuries it was a Roman "Client State", but under emperor Nero it was briefly an area of the Roman Province of Moesia inferior (from 62 to 68).

Rome started to dominate the Crimea peninsula (then called Taurica) in the 1st century BCE.

Anonymous city-ruler in the Bosporan
Kingdom, a Roman vassal state in
the Crimea (180).

The region was temporarily conquered by the Goths in 250, but the Eastern Roman Empire took again control of the region under Justinian I.

History

The Mangup settlement dates back to the 3rd century AD and was fortified by Justinian I in the mid 6th century.

It was inhabited and governed primarily by Crimean Goths, and became the center of their autonomous principality, the Metropolis of Doros during the 5th to 7th centuries. It was conquered by the Khazars in the early 8th century.

The historian of Justinian I, Procopius of Caesarea, (Kissariisky) wrote that Justinian I rebuilt and renovated the walls of Chersonese and Bospor. In addition to this he built two other fortresses at Alushta (Alustan) and Gurzuf (Gorzubity). The location of these two fortresses are in present day resort cities on the Black Sea coast, and are being excavated by archaeologists.

In the last few years rumor has it that Justinian fortress traces have been found. Procopius wrote also about the construction of long walls, in Greek Makratei. These long walls have been found and one of the walls cuts thru the valley on the approach to Mangup from the north. Along the asphalt top highway the wall crossed the valley.

Evidently the construction of the fortresses on Mangup and on neighboring Eski-Kermen took place during the last years of Justinian's life. Procopius never mentions the construction of the fortresses on those sites. However on Mangup a tablet was found with an inscription bearing the name of Justinian I and archaeological research has led to the conclusion that the time period for the construction of the Mangup fortress was during his reign.

Why would they go to such tremendous trouble to build a fortress up on Mangup?

The fortress is very close to Kherson and defended the approaches to Chersonese. The general reason was to give the neighboring population and refuges a safe haven from attacking armies. The proximate reason was the emergence of the huge Turkic Khaganate state laying in Asia from the Azov Sea to the Pacific Ocean basins.

In the last decades of Justinian's rule, that in the sixties and seventies of the sixth century, it is generally accepted that the Turkic Khaganate posed a real military threat and that Justinian was well aware of this. Later, in the eighties of the sixth century, the Turkic armies did conquered the Bosphor, but were unable to conquer this area. These were the early, Turkic peoples, who preceded the Cumans and Pechenegs, (Kipchaks).

The Pechenegs came about at the end of the 9th century, whereas the early Turkic (pronounced "Tiurki"), formed a state in the 6th and 7th centuries.
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Later in the 8th century was the center of an unsuccessful Gothic revolt against Khazaria led by Bishop John of Gothia.  John was a Metropolitan bishop of Doros. During the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm, John reputedly gathered Orthodox refugees from Constantinople in the Crimea. He overthrew and expelled the Khazars from Gothia 787; the Khazars however managed to retake the city in less than a year, and John was imprisoned in Fullakh (Stary Krym). He later managed to escape, and sought refuge in Amasra in the Byzantine Empire, where he died in 791.


Bakhchisaray. Cave town Chufut-Kale, Karaites cemetery
Nearby Chufut-Kale is a national monument of Crimean Karaite culture and Tatar fortress in Crimea, near Bakhchisaray. Its name is Crimean Tatar and Turkish for "Jewish Fortress".  Some consider it to be a Byzantine fortress founded in the 6th century.

Kievan Rus under the walls of Constantinople (860).
The Rus were one of many invading groups that threatened the
Empire's northern borders and Byzantine Crimea.

The principality of Doros was under Byzantine domination from the mid 9th century to approximately 1000, when it fell under the influence of competing powers - Kievan Rus and the Kipchak tribal confederacy. The town was severely damaged by an earthquake in the 11th century., yet managed to maintain autonomy during the Mongol conquest of Crimea but was compelled to pay tribute to the Great Khan.

The Fourth Crusade of 1204 shattered the Eastern Eastern Roman Empire into competing Greek speaking states.

Crimea and Mangup became the center of the Principality of Theodoro, a state closely allied with the Empire of Trebizond. 

The Principality was formed after the Fourth Crusade out of parts of the Byzantine thema of Klimata which were not occupied by the Genoese. Its population was a mixture of Greeks, Crimean Goths, Alans, Bulgars, Kypchaks and other nations, which confessed Orthodox Christianity. The principality's official language was Greek.

The ruling dynasty, stemming from the Trapezuntine imperial house, was called Gabras.

In 1475, Stephen III of Moldavia sent his brother-in-law, Alexander Gabras, to Mangup with the purpose of replacing a local ruler from the Gabras family, who was Alexander's own brother and vassal to the Ottomans. In May that same year, the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha conquered Caffa and at the end of the year, after five months of besieging Mangup, the city fell to the assaulters. While much of the rest of Crimea remained part of the Crimean Khanate, now an Ottoman vassal, former lands of Theodoro and southern Crimea was administered directly by the Sublime Porte.

The town's inexorable decline continued. In 1774 the fortress was abandoned by the Turkish garrison. The last inhabitants, a small community of Karaims, abandoned the site in the 1790s.

The cave city Mangup Kale.  The fortress is located on a plateau
about 9 miles due east of Sevastopol.

The wall of the citadel.

 

 

The Fortress

The Eastern Roman Empire about 1025 AD
Rome started to dominate the southern Crimea peninsula (then called Taurica) in the 1st century BCE.  The Mangup settlement dates back to the 3rd century AD and was fortified by Justinian I in the mid 6th century. 
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The region had been under Roman and later Byzantine imperial control until the early 8th century, but passed under Khazar control thereafter. Byzantine authority was re-established by Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842).  The province remained under Byzantine control until the dissolution of the Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when it passed under the sovereignty of the breakaway Empire of Trebizond.

(archeologia.narod.ru)        (mangup-kale.ru)          (wiki/Mangup)

(xenophon-mil.org/crimea)          (Roman Crimea)         

(discover-ukraine.info)          (mapofukraine.net/crimean mountains)