Bandon (Byzantine Empire)

The bandon (Greek: βάνδον) was the basic military and territorial administrative unit of the middle Byzantine Empire. Its name, like the Latin bandus and bandum ("ensign, banner"), had a Germanic origin. It derived from the Gothic bandwō, which is the witness of foreign influence in the army at the time this type of unit evolved. The term was used already in the 6th century, mentioned by Procopius, as a term for a battle standard, and soon came to be applied to the unit bearing such a standard itself. Since the time of ruling Nikephoros I (802–811) it was the name for a subdistrict of the Byzantine thema.

In the Byzantine army of the 8th–11th centuries, the bandon formed the basic unit, with five to seven banda forming a tourma, the major subdivision of a thema, a combined military-civilian province. Each bandon was commanded by a komes ("count"), with infantry banda 200–400 strong and cavalry banda 50–100 strong. It is considered that the bandon in the Tactica (9th century) previously in the Strategikon (6th century) was alternatively written as tagma or arithmos.

Infantry banda was formed by sixteen lochaghiai, each with sixteen man, commaned by an officer lochaghos (file leader), which was assisted by dekarchos (leader of ten), pentarchos (leader of five), tetrarchos (leader of four), and ouraghos (file closer). Each four lochaghiai formed an allaghion (winglet), and around three-quarters of the men were spearmen skutaoi and one-quarter were archers. At the time the Strategikon was written, the cavalry banda was subdivied into three hekatontarchia, each commaned by a hekatontarchos with a senior second-in-command illarches.

...
Wikipedia