[32] Leo, Tactica, § 18. The paragraphs here are a condensation of Leo’s advice, and sometimes an elucidation, not a literal translation. [33] σκουτáτοι {skoutátoi}, one of the curious Latin survivals in Byzantine military terminology. In translitterating Latin words the Greeks paid no attention to quantity. [34] Much confusion in military history has been caused by writers attributing the archery of the Turks to the Saracens: the latter were not employers of archery-tactics, but lancers. Battles like Dorylæum, which are given as examples of Saracen warfare, were fought really by Turks. [35] Leo, § 18. 124. [36] Ibid. [37] Ibid. 120. [38] Leo, Tactica: various scattered notices in § 18. [39] In Leo’s day the Oriental themes had not been sub-divided, as was afterwards done by his son Constantine. There were then eight themes in Asia Minor, each of which contained a military division of the same name, and could be reckoned on for some 4000 heavy cavalry. These were ‘Armeniacon, Anatolicon, Obsequium, Thracesion, Cibyrrhœot, Bucellarion, and Paphlagonia.’ Optimaton, the ninth theme, had (as Constantine tells us in his treatise on the empire), no military establishments. [40] See in the next section of this treatise for the plan of his formation, p. 45. [41] Leo, Tactica, 18. 118. [42] Ibid. 136. [43] Ibid. 118. [44] See Colonel Clery’s Minor Tactics. [45] Leo, Tactica, 18. [46] Compare with this the stratagem by which the Russian army escaped from a compromised position during the retreat before the battle of Austerlitz. ‘In agreeing to an Armistice,’ wrote Kutusoff, in a very Byzantine tone, ‘I had in view nothing but to gain time, and thereby obtain the means of removing to a distance from the enemy, and saving my army.’ Dumas, xiv. 48. [47] The Middle Ages dimly felt this, and (as Gibbon tells us) the Italian Chroniclers name him the ‘first of the Greek Emperors.’ [48] As, for example, the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who, in his book on the ‘Themata Orientis,’ attributes the invention of the ‘Theme’ and ‘tagma’ to Heraclius. [49] Βάνδον {Bandon}, bandum, had become a common word in Justinian’s time: it is used as a Teutonic equivalent for ‘vexillum’ in both its senses. [50] Comes had in Constantine’s days been applied to five great officers alone. [51] This curious word is first formed in Vegetius, where it is only applied to the masses of a barbarian army. (Cf. English ‘throng.’) [52] See the evidence of coins: the title ΠΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΘΕῼ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ {PISTOS EN THEÔ BASILEUS TÔN RÔMAIÔN} only becomes common under the Amorian dynasty. [53] See Leo’s Tactica, xii. [54] Ibid. vi. [55] Leo, Tactica, vi. [56] E.g. a κελίκον {kelikon} and a ματζούκιον {matzoukion}. [57] The century contained 10 decuries, but the ‘decury’ was 16 not 10 men: thus the century was 160 strong. Three centuries went to a ‘band,’ which would thus be about 450 men. [58] Gold coin, worth perhaps 12_s._ in metal value.