Potencijal funkcije domestika shola (VIII-X vek)
The Potential of the Office of Domestikos ton Scholon (8th-10th centuries)

Summary/Abstract: The flexibility of the Byzantine state apparatus was provided by the Emperor's capacity to grant competences, offices and honorary titles at his will, a feature that had a considerable impact on the organization of the supreme command in the Empire. Two basic types of military offices can be distinguished: the so-called official (those known from taktikd) and the unofficial, i.e. extraordinary ones (monostrategos, strategos-autokratof). The designations of the latter are often denied the status as technical terms. Now, whether these terms are technical or not is only to be determined on the basis of the existence or non-existence of clearly defined competences attached to them. For instance, the report of Nikephoros Phokas the Elder's appointment to the post of "monostrategos of the Western Themes, Thrace and Macedonia and Kephalonia, Longobardia and Calabria" (G. Monachos-Muralt 757) bears witness to the clearly defined military competences of the monostrategos. It is therefore highly improbable that the term 'monostrategos' was used in its literal sense here: it is an officer whose power is not only military, but also explicitly accumulative in nature. Accumulative military power, i.e. a power over military units of different types and origins, is the basic characteristic of the highest commanding offices...

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