Kentarches: A Byzantine officer in charge of one hundred Byzantine soldiers or the crew of a dromon. A descendant of the Roman centurion.
Kentarchia: A notional unit of one hundred Byzantine soldiers, commanded by a Kentarches.
Khagan: The title of the Seljuk chieftain prior to the era of the sultanate.
Klibanion: The characteristic Byzantine lamellar cuirass made of leather, horn or iron squares, usually sleeveless, though sometimes with leather strips hanging from the waist and shoulders.
Komes: An officer in charge of a bandon who would wear a white* sash to denote his rank.
Kontarion: A spear between two and three metres long, the kontarion was designed for Byzantine infantry to hold off enemy cavalry.
Kontoubernion: A grouping of ten Byzantine infantry who would eat together, patrol together, share sleeping quarters or a pavilion tent while on campaign. They would be rewarded or punished as a single unit.
Kursoris: Byzantine scout rider, lightly armed with little or no armour.
Milareum Aureum: The gilded bronze mile pillar situated just north of the Hippodrome in Constantinople.
Nomisma: A gold coin that could be debased by various degrees to set its value.
Numeroi: A Byzantine imperial tagma, stationed in Constantinople. They guarded the prisons, the walls, the site of the Baths of Zeuxippus and parts of the Imperial Palace.
Paramerion: A one-edged, slightly curved blade carried by the kataphractoi.
Pamphylos: 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.
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.
Signophorioi: Byzantine standard bearers for the tagmata. They would carry sacred purple and gold banners on campaign.
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.
Skribones: Byzantine medical personnel who would carry the dead and wounded from the battlefield.
Skutatos: 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.
Solenarion: A wooden channel that can be fitted to a standard bow to create a rudimentary crossbow. This allows quick aiming and firing of short, weighty darts.
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: Literally ‘army leader’. The themata armies of Byzantium were organised and led by such a man. The strategos was also responsible for governance of his thema.
Tagma: 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 themata. They were well armoured, armed, paid and fed. Each tagma held around five 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: 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: A Byzantine officer in charge of the military forces and administration of a tourma.
Toxotes: The Byzantine archer, lightly armoured with a felt jacket and armed with a composite bow and a dagger.
Tourma: 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: An elite infantry unit of the Byzantine army, employed as a personal bodyguard to the emperor. These axemen were primarily Rus or Germanic, and were thought to be both loyal and fierce in battle.
Vasilikoploimon: Byzantine imperial fleet stationed in the Bosphorus. This fleet was responsible for patrolling the Propontus Sea and for transporting campaign armies.
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: Rise of the Golden Heart, why not try:
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.
Galdir: A Slave’s Tale by Fredrik Nath
A Roman slave with a serpent tattoo uncovers his true barbarian identity... A battle for power among Frankish warlords leads to a mass exodus across the Rhine... All the while, Marcus Aurelius' Roman army pushes further north, changing everything. These three events meet in a cataclysm that changes the course of history. In the background, the ageing witch Chlotsuintha predicts it all. Or is she the one pulling the strings to shape her people's future?
When Sextus escapes Rome with a pocketful of gold and a knife, how could he even have dreamt of what the fates might have in store for him?
Pursued by Roman soldiers for the murder of his master, Sextus enlists the help of a retired gladiator, and falls in love with the gladiator's niece. An invading German army drives them further north, where Sextus discovers his true birthright, and his real name - Galdir. He becomes caught up in a
bitter feud as one of the heirs of a dead Frankish warlord; but the blood feud must be put aside when the Romans invade and besiege the Frankish capital.
'Galdir' is enthralling Roman fiction - a tale of love, brutal battles and conflict, in which a mystical prophecy winds its way through an epic saga of struggle against Rome, and the consequences of resistance by the Frankish people, its Warlord and its witches.
Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart Page 37
