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Thomas Magistros’ “On Imperial Office” on military preparations

Thomas Magistros, his city and his times

The fourteenth century was a period of turbulence for the Byzantine Empire, and Thessaloniki had a great share of these troubles. The continuous wars and the internal conflicts were affecting the lives and the works of contemporary people, and intellectuals could not have been an exception to that.

Thomas Magistros is believed to have been born around the year 1275 and he died sometime after 1347. The oldest work that we know that he produced dates back to 1301, and the last mention of him is dated to 1346. Between these two dates there is not much information available about his life.[1]

On the Imperial Office[2] is a Mirror for Princes that he wrote between 1324 and 1350, at a time when was a monk, and it was addressed to the emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. Mirrors for Princes were advisory rhetorical works compiled for princes and young kings. Although their authors had been drawing their content from the same pool of thought, they chose to use different material, changing it from one period to another so that their work could reflect the imperial ideology and the political realities of their time. This rule also applies to their mentions of war preparations and military affairs in general.[3]

In the times of Magistros, warfare, sieges, and political and social turmoil were not rare. The Byzantine scholar was native to Thessalonike: he was born and died there and the only time, which we know of, that he left the city, was to deliver an oration in Constantinople, on behalf of the general Chandrenos, who had defended his city in the past.[4] Therefore, it is safe to assume that his attitude and thoughts were heavily influenced by what he was witnessing and what he knew of his city’s recent past. And the city of Thessaloniki, despite or as a consequence of its considerable growth during that period,[5] had had a troubled history just before the time the Mirror was written, and continued to have such for some time. In 1308 the Catalan Great Company tried to conquer the city only to be stopped by its walls. Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, who unsuccessfully besieged Thessaloniki in 1334 and returned again in 1341, had the same (bad) luck. And the dangers did not only belong to the past, as the attack of the Ottomans in 1383 can attest. The city fell at their hands in 1387 as a result of this attack, only a few decades after On the Imperial Office was written.

But Thessaloniki had also had troubles coming from within the empire and even the city itself. Andronikos II and Andronikos III tried to claim it as their own from 1320 onwards, and in 1340 the city fell temporarily in the hands of the zealots.[6]

It therefore comes as no surprise that Magistros chose to include in his work advice on military affairs, not omitting, at the same time, to express his thoughts about the preparations of a city so it could withstand an enemy’s siege.

Military affairs in On the Imperial Office

In On the Imperial Office Magistros refers to military affairs several times. First, he states that he wished weapons were never invented and that the emperor should not go to a war led by his greed. On the contrary, he must do anything in his power so that the war is avoided (ζ΄, 457). However, if he wants to secure peace he must always be prepared for war. The scholar justifies his claim noting that weakness is creating enemies and if you only pursue peaceful resolution to conflicts you might draw the enemies upon you. On the contrary, however, if you are prepared and strong nobody will want to wage war on you and this way you can enjoy peace (η΄, 457). Moreover, he advises that the emperor should always be ready in both body and soul and the way to do that is to exercise for the possibility of war. He should not only keep himself prepared, but he should also have his whole army prepared and exercised (drilled) as well (η΄, 457-458). He should also maintain a strong army and navy but he should not rely on mercenaries because they are far from trustworthy. After all, quality is better than quantity, he notes, and the mercenaries are only good to add to the numbers of an army (θ΄, 460-461).

In an excerpt that speaks about justice Magistros also finds the opportunity to mention several factors which he believes that are essential for a city to be safe.  Having been built in a natural feature of the land that helps defense and being protected by walls and fortifications are prerequisites if the city is to be saved from an enemy siege. The human factor, according to the rhetor (Magistros), is equally important towards that end (στ΄, 456). He states that the soldiers should always be kept content and be offered presents because this way they will be kept motivated to train themselves in times of peace and to not lose respect in the face of the emperor. In times of war, this could prevent them from abandoning the battle even if they were injured. They should always be assured that if they lose their possessions in times of war, these will be replaced by the emperor. On top of these, what is of great importance is that they need to know that their children will be taken care of in case they fall in battle. Like the ancient Athenians before them, advises Magistros, the Byzantines must also always take of the children of those who died fighting, until they reach adulthood (ι΄, 461-463).

But strong walls and capable fighters are not enough to ensure that a city will not fall during an enemy siege, Magistros claims. Provisions should be made prior to the attack. The storages should always be kept filled in full with grain and all the other essentials, which should not be available for trade. To that end the emperor must spare no expenses, because money spent for that reason is well spent. These preparations could be life-saving for the people and they bring honour to the king. Because regardless of the cities’ moats and walls, if there are not enough supplies available to feed its population, this city will not be able to withstand a long siege. The rhetor concludes that the storage of food is as important as a strong fortification (κγ΄, 484). It is worth mentioning that this kind of advice is found very rarely in Mirrors. Apart from On the Imperial Office there is perhaps one more similar mention in a work of this genre, in Kekaumenos’ Strategikon (85. 265), something that does not come as a surprise, considering that the author of that work was probably a soldier and thus he took extra care to make long mentions of everything that was war related.

Conclusions

On the Imperial Office is a workthat can provide us with an insight into what an intellectual living in fourteenth-century Thessaloniki was thinking in regards to state affairs. The conflicts of his time, internal and external, and the sieges his city had to withstand had led him to make special mentions of military affairs.

First of all, he advises that a city should have strong walls. And indeed the land walls of his hometown are described as being strong. However, the sea walls failed to provide the same safety to the city.[7] The last attested repairs before the time of Magistros date to the twelfth century, and the same action was repeated a few decades after his death.[8]

The scholar also provides advice and insights regarding soldiers. He states that the emperor should take steps to ensure that they always remain loyal and they do not lose respect for him. The importance of this advice lies in the conflict between Andronikos II and Andronikos III as none of them could afford to see his soldiers joining the enemy.

Magistros also urges the emperor to take measures for the children of the soldiers that were becoming orphans as a result of the continuous wars of the period, even if his real concern is to ensure their parents that a good fate awaits their offspring if they die in battle, and therefore making them fight with more braveness. This mention is a clear indicator of a real problem that might have occurred inside the cities of the empire because of the numerous conflicts.

Last but not least, the rhetor notes that the cities’ storages should always be full of grain, to help the city in case of an enemy’s siege, which was, in his time, a recurring threat to the well-being of Thessaloniki’s citizens.


[1] Nigel Guy Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, (London, Cambridge, Mass.: General Duckworth & Co. ltd. And The Medieval Academy of America, 1983), p. 247.

[2] Jacque Paul Migne, Nicephorus Callistus, Theodulos Monachus, Matthaeus Blastares [Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca], Tomus 145, (Paris, 1904), pp. 447-496.

[3] For this notion see Konstantinos Karatolios, ‘From peacemaker to warrior. Changes in the imperial education as illustrated in the eleventh-century Mirrors of Princes’, in Warfare in 11th century Byzantium, ed. by Georgios Theotokis and Marek Meško (London and New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 98-108 (pp. 98-108).

[4] Alexander Kazhdan and Alice-Mary Talbot, ‘Thomas Magistros’, in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, volume 3, ed. by Alexander Kazhdan (New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 2076-2077 (p. 2076).

[5] Angeliki E. Laiou, Cécile Morrisson, The Byzantine Economy, (New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 198.

[6] For these incidents see, among others, Vassiliki Nerantzi-Varmazi, ‘Η Θεσσαλονίκη εστία Κοινωνικών Αναταραχών το 14ο αιώνα’, Θεσσαλονικέων Πόλις, 2 (1997), pp. 74-81 (pp. 74-81).

[7] On the sea walls of Thessalonike, see among others Michael Vickers, ‘The Byzantine Sea Walls of Thessaloniki’, Balkan Studies, 11 (1970), pp. 261-280.

[8] Timothy E. Gregory, ‘Thessalonike’, in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, volume 3, ed. by Alexander Kazhdan (New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 2072-2074 (pp. 2072-2073).

Conference Review: “Second International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea” (Thessaloniki, 16-18 September 2021)

The conference “Second International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea” took place on September 16-18, 2021 in Thessaloniki. The event was co-organised by the Byzantine Thessaloniki organization (Βυζαντινή Θεσσαλονίκη) and Ibn-Haldun University (Istanbul). The full programme will be uploaded soon by the organizers on Academia.edu. The event was a follow-up to the successful “First International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea” held at Fatih University (Istanbul) on 25-28 June 2015. The connecting link was Dr. Georgios Theotokis who oversaw large part of the organization and structure of sessions of both conferences. The aim of both events as established by their respective call for papers was to bring together different networks of researchers in order to explore the vast military history of the Mediterranean over the centuries through the prism of various disciplines such as history, archaeology, history of art and philology.

Thessaloniki, has been one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean for commercial and tactical purposes for two-and-a-half millennia, and provided a perfect backdrop for the conference. The choice of the Military Museum of Thessaloniki for the event venue was an immersive space with great conference facilities. Attendance was unfortunately not open to the public due to strict Covid-19 regulations. Prior to the conference, a guided tour of the museum introduced all those present to a trove of unique objects in an old-fashioned but well-kept collection. Exhibits from the seventeenth century onwards were displayed to highlight the wars of Greece from the Greek War of Independence to the Balkan Wars and the World Wars. Furthermore, the museum features an amazing permanent exhibition on Sophia Vempo, an iconic singer and symbol of resistance for Greece during World War II, as well as room dedicated to the resistance against the Greek dictatorship (1967-74). The conference opened with formal greetings from members of the organizing committee and officials, and the first keynote lecture.

Fig. 1: The Military Museum of Thessaloniki.

Over three days attendees had the opportunity to listen to a wide array of papers and subjects from 42 speakers that ranged from postgraduate students and early career researchers to leading authorities in their respective fields. The conference featured some parallel sessions, which is a testament to its size, however, it can also be a drawback in such specialized events where those attending have a general interest in most presentations. The three keynote speakers Haralambos Papasotiriou (Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies, Panteion University), Matthe Bennett (Visiting Research Fellow, University of Winchester; formerly Senior Lecturer, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst) and Georgios Theotokis (Ibn-Haldun University and member of the conferences organizing committee) created a strong theoretical frame tackling key components of military history such as strategy, tactics and leadership.

Sessions were organized either thematically or chronologically in a manner that papers grouped together complemented each other and created opportunities for useful post-presentation discussions. Subjects discussed included military units and their relevant terminologies, army composition, borders and international relationships. Moreover, speakers discussed key subjects that seemingly exist in the peripheries of military history such as religion, divinity and power, sexual violence, masculinity, depictions of martial military and non-military themes, which are however, a necessary part of the greater mosaic we discuss nowadays as martial culture, and are by no means less important than more traditional and well-studied topics. Thematic panels on leadership, martial elites, fortifications and arms and armour painted a larger image that spanned from Late Antiquity to the seventeenth century, focusing at times on important personae or geographical regions, and demonstrated the myriad subjects available for research both in the context of the Mediterranean as well as in the field of military history. Most of the conference papers were Byzantine-themed but this is unsurprising considering that the event was hosted in Greece and particularly Thessaloniki, and yet even in that specific thematic of Mediterranean history, scholars demonstrated a variety of topics and the need for further research. Speakers employed a multitude of methodologies in order to explore the aforementioned themes and discussions focused on their intersections such as leadership, tactics and intercultural influences.

Fig. 2: Detail from the collection of the Military Museum of Thessaloniki exhibiting equipment from World War II.

After nearly two years of online conferences and events it was refreshing seeing once more the value of in-person events with discussions and collaborations brewing after presentations and during breaks. The level of discussion was impressive and even in the case of scholarly disagreement this was always conducted in a manner that demonstrated that learning and advancing was at the core of this event.  

Besides the great variety and high level of the presentations, as well as the great hosting and facilities this is not to say that the event is beyond criticism. The conference clearly favoured traditional historical approaches to military history over more modern interdisciplinary methodologies and this was largely reflected both in the subjects of the keynote lectures as well as in the content of most of the essays presented. Arguably, the only detail that seriously tarnished an overall great event was the presence and lecture of a politician and member of the Greek Parliament Mr. Konstantinos Gkioulekas, who instead of limiting himself to a formal greeting he gave an hour-long lecture, which ended up being a crescendo of obsolete nationalist and populist ideas. With audacity, he instructed all historians present not to “over-analyse primary sources because first-hand accounts are true and provide all information we need”, and amusingly brought as examples nineteenth century newspapers and propaganda pamphlets. This, combined with the moderator of the opening ceremony speaking Greek instead of English to an international audience showed that the priorities of some of the organizers focused on appealing to local political and religious officials rather than catering to the speakers invited.

Overall, the quality of the organization of the academic part of the event and the papers presented was excellent. Even in specialized conferences, it is hard to have so many engaging and interesting topics that generate a continuous stimulating discussion. It would take weeks to even attempt to cover briefly basic subjects drawn from every corner of the Mediterranean, even if the focus was an artificial chronological border such as the last millennium. However, the speakers and the organizers proved that the essays of the conference, acting as research vignettes, could highlight many of the aspects that are currently being studied or that need further research. The Mediterranean was presented as a place of communicating ideas and cultures that affected each other, which resonated to the present and the very essence of the event. Hopefully, a third installation of the conference, and perhaps many more, will keep advancing the field creating the platform for further discussion. As a series of conferences the “International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea” is becoming an important event for those researching the Mediterranean and/or military history. A volume with the conference proceedings is planned for publication in the future.