Pamphylos (pl. Pamphyloi): A small, round-hulled Byzantine cargo ship, used typically to transport horses and artillery.
Portatioi: A shadowy subset of the Numeroi. It is thought that they were employed as torturers.
Protoproedros: Title of a senior Byzantine court official.
Rhiptarion: A short throwing spear. Skutatoi carried two or three of these each.
Salep: A hot drink made with orchid root, cinnamon and milk.
Shatranj: A precursor to modern-day chess.
Signophoros (pl. Signophoroi): Byzantine standard bearers for the tagmata. They would carry the sacred purple and gold banners on campaign.
Siphonaros (pl. Siphonarioi): Operators of Greek-fire throwing siphons. They operated large siphons mounted on towers or walls, and it is thought that they also carried smaller, hand-held siphons into field battles.
Skutatos (pl. Skutatoi): The Byzantine infantryman, based on the ancient hoplite. He was armed with a spathion, a skutum, a kontarion, two or more rhiptaria and possibly a dagger and an axe. He would wear a conical iron helmet and a lamellar klibanion if positioned to the front of his bandon, or a padded jacket or felt vest if he was closer to the rear. Tagma skutatoi may well all have been afforded iron lamellar armour.
Skutum: The Byzantine infantry shield that gives the skutatoi their name. Usually kite or teardrop-shaped and painted identically within a bandon.
Spathion: The Byzantine infantry sword, derived from the Roman spatha. Up to a metre long, this straight blade was primarily for stabbing, but allowed slashing and hacking as well.
Strategos (pl. Strategoi): The themata armies of Byzantium were organised and led by such a man. The strategos was also responsible for governance of his thema.
Tagma (pl. Tagmata): The tagmata were the professional standing armies of the Byzantine Empire. They were traditionally clustered around Constantinople. These armies were formed to provide a central reserve, to meet enemy encroachment that could not be dealt with by the themata, and also to cow the potentially revolutionary power of those regional armies. They were well armoured, armed, paid and fed. Each tagma held several thousand men and was composed exclusively of cavalry or infantry. In the 11th century AD, some of these tagmata were moved closer to the borders to deal with emerging threats. In addition, a raft of smaller, ‘mercenary’ tagmata were formed in these regions, comprising largely of Rus, Normans and Franks.
Thema (pl. Themata): In the 7th century AD, as a result of the crisis caused by the Muslim conquests, the Byzantine military and administrative system was reformed: the old late Roman division between military and civil administration was abandoned, and the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire’s field armies were settled in great districts, the themata, that were named after those armies. The men of the themata would work their state-leased military lands in times of peace and then don their armour and weapons when summoned by the strategos to defend their thema or to set out on campaign alone or with the tagmata. The manpower of each thema varied vastly, with some able to field only a few thousand men while others could muster as many as ten or fifteen thousand men. The diagram at the front of the book depicts the structure these forces would be organised into. In the 11th century, the thematic system was in steep decline, with the tagmata gradually taking over as defenders of the borderlands.
Tourmarches (pl. Tourmarchai): A Byzantine officer in charge of the military forces and administration of a tourma.
Toxotes (pl. Toxotai): The Byzantine archer, lightly armoured with a felt jacket and armed with a composite bow and a dagger.
Tourma (pl. Tourmae): A subdivision of a Byzantine thema, commanded by a tourmarches. Each tourma was comprised of some two thousand soldiers of the thema army and encompassed a geographical subset of the thema lands.
Varangoi (sing. Varangos): An elite infantry unit of the Byzantine army, employed as personal bodyguards to the emperor. These axemen were primarily Rus or Germanic, and were thought to be both loyal and fierce in battle.
Yalma: A close-fitting, long-sleeved and knee-length silk shirt worn by Turkic peoples.
*The use of a sash to denote rank is backed up by historical texts, but the sash colours stated are speculative.
If you enjoyed Strategos: Island in the Storm, why not try the following tales of historical fiction?
Legionary, by Gordon Doherty
The Roman Empire is crumbling, and a shadow looms in the east…
376 AD: the Eastern Roman Empire is alone against the tide of barbarians swelling on her borders. Emperor Valens juggles the paltry border defences to stave off invasion from the Goths north of the Danube. Meanwhile, in Constantinople, a pact between faith and politics spawns a lethal plot that will bring the dark and massive hordes from the east crashing down on these struggling borders.
The fates conspire to see Numerius Vitellius Pavo, enslaved as a boy after the death of his legionary father, thrust into the limitanei, the border legions, just before they are sent to recapture the long-lost eastern Kingdom of Bosporus. He is cast into the jaws of this plot, so twisted that the survival of the entire Roman world hangs in the balance…
The Thief’s Tale, by S.J.A Turney
Istanbul, 1481. The once great city of Constantine that now forms the heart of the Ottoman empire is a strange mix of Christian, Turk and Jew. Despite the benevolent reign of the Sultan Bayezid II, the conquest is still a recent memory, and emotions run high among the inhabitants, with danger never far beneath the surface. Skiouros and Lykaion, the sons of a Greek country farmer, are conscripted into the ranks of the famous Janissary guards and taken to Istanbul where they will play a pivotal, if unsung, role in the history of the new regime. As Skiouros escapes into the Greek quarter and vanishes among its streets to survive on his wits alone, Lykaion remains with the slave chain to fulfill his destiny and become an Islamic convert and a guard of the Imperial palace. Brothers they remain, though standing to either side of an unimaginable divide. On a fateful day in late autumn 1490, Skiouros picks the wrong pocket and begins to unravel a plot that reaches to the very highest peaks of Imperial power. He and his brother are about to be left with the most difficult decision faced by a conquered Greek: whether the rule of the Ottoman Sultan is worth saving.
Table of Contents
Title & Copyright Page
Maps & Military Diagrams
Prologue Manzikert Friday 26th August 1071 AD
Part 1: 1069 AD Two years earlier . . .
1. The Rogue of the Black Fort
2. Blood River
3. An Elusive Foe
4. The Cilician Gates
Part 2: 1070 AD
5. Lure
6. The Lion’s Pride
7. A Dagger in the Dark
8. Field of Carrion
Part 3: 1071 AD
9. Ruthless
10. Adnoumion
11. The Strangeness
12. The Lion’s Fury
13. Field of Bones
14. The Gathering of the Horde
15. City of Echoes
Part 4: Manzikert
16. The Taking of Manzikert
17. The Lion Circles
18. Into the Fray
19. Island in the Storm
20. Amongst the Dead
21. Home
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Glossary
Strategos: Island in the Storm Page 43