It was probably in the period 657-662, before his departure from the capital, that Constantinus recast the provincial administration of the empire in accordance with the needs of the times. It seems that the institution of the ‘Themes,’ or new provinces, must date from this, the only space of rest and rearrangement to be found in a long age of wars. The old provinces, as arranged by Diocletian, and somewhat modified by Justinian, had been small, and in each of them civil and military powers were kept separate, the local garrison not being under the control of the local administrator. The needs of the long Persian and Saracen wars had led to the practical supersession of the civil governors by the military commanders, for it was absolutely necessary that the men trusted with the preservation of the empire should be able to control its local administration and finance. [Sidenote: Creation of the Themes.] The new provinces were few and large, and ruled by governors, who had civil as well as military authority. They were called ‘themes,’ after the name of the military divisions which occupied them, a ‘theme’ being originally a force of some 4000 regular cavalry detailed for the protection of a district. The names of the original Asiatic themes easily explain themselves, ‘Anatolikon’ and ‘Armeniakon’ the two largest, were the regions garrisoned by the ‘army of the East’ and the ‘army of Armenia.’ ‘Thrakesion,’ farther west, shows that the original ‘army of Thrace’ had been brought over into Asia to give aid against the Saracen. ‘Bucellarion’ was named after the Bucellarii,[39] a corps originally formed of Teutonic auxiliaries. The theme called Obsequium (Opsikion) was held by the Imperial Guard. Only the Cibyrhaeote theme, along the southern coast of Asia Minor, was named from a town, and not from the troops who garrisoned it. In the West, there seem to have been originally three themes in the Balkan peninsula, Thrace, Illyricum, and Hellas, and three beyond it, Ravenna, Sicily, and Africa. Each theme was governed by a stratêgos, whose military title shows his military character, and was garrisoned by its own local force of regular troops, the core of which was in each case a division of 4000 heavy cavalry. The full force of the twelve themes would give some 48,000 horsemen for the field, in addition to the less important infantry, the local militia used for holding fortresses, and the irregular hired bands of barbarian auxiliaries of many different races. Footnote 39: See page 131 for a Visigothic use of the word Bucellarii. [Illustration: PROBABLE ARRANGEMENT OF THE SIX ASIATIC THEMES A.D. 660-700 ]