Macedonia (theme)
| Theme of Macedonia Μακεδονία, θέμα Μακεδονίας |
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| Theme of the Byzantine Empire | |||||
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| Capital | Adrianople | ||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||
| • | Established | 789/797 – 801/802 | |||
| • | Merged with Thrace. | Various times in late 10th and early 11th centuries | |||
| Today part of |
 Greece Turkey Bulgaria
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The Theme of Macedonia (Greek: θέμα Μακεδονίας) was a military-civilian province (theme) of the Byzantine Empire established between the late 8th century and the early 9th century. Byzantine Macedonia also incorporated the region of Thrace. Its capital was Adrianople.
From the beginning of the 6th century, the former Roman Diocese of Macedonia, then part of the Byzantine Empire became a subject to frequent raids by Slavic tribes which, in the course of next centuries, resulted in drastic demographic and cultural changes. The Slavs organized themselves into "Sklaviniai", that continued to assault the Byzantine Empire, either independently, or aided by Bulgars or Avars during the 7th century. In the late 7th century, the Byzantines organized a massive expedition against the Slavs in the area. They subdued many Slavic tribes and established a new theme of Thrace in the hinterland of Thessaloniki. Despite these temporary successes, the rule in the region was far from stable. The Empire instead resorted to withdraw its defense-line south along the Aegean coast, until the late 8th century.
As a consequence, a new theme called Macedonia was created between 789 (or 797) and 801/802 by the Empress Irene of Athens, from the older theme of Thrace.Sigillographic evidence shows that a tourma ("division") named "Macedonia" existed before, subordinated to the strategos of Thrace. The first known strategos of Macedonia, the patrikios John Aplakes, was mentioned in 813, but Theophanes the Confessor mentioned Leo, brother of the eunuch chamberlain Aetios, being appointed as the monostrategos ("single-general", placed in command over two or more themes) of Thrace and Macedonia already in 801/802. Its creation came in the aftermath of a series of military successes that had extended Byzantine reach over most of the wider region of Thrace, and was probably intended to make imperial control more efficient by entrusting the greatly expanded territory to two strategoi.
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