Charpezikion ( gr, Χαρπεζίκιον) was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

fortress and small province (

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

) in the 10th century. The fortress of Charpezikion is identified with Çarpezik Kalesi, east of the Euphrates River, while some earlier scholars identify it with Harpuzik, west of the Euphrates, some 16 km northwest of Arapgir. The fortress became the seat of a namesake military province (

) during the conquests of John Kourkouas in the region. Due to a confusion in the transcription of the manuscript of '' De Ceremoniis'', several modern sources mention that its first appearance in the sources was in 935, in the context of a Byzantine expedition into southern Italy, but

Nicolas Oikonomides Nikolaos or Nikos Oikonomides ( el, Νικόλαος Οικονομίδης, 14 February 1934 – 31 May 2000) was a Greek Byzantinist, and one of the leading experts in the field of Byzantine administration. Biography Oikonomides was born in ...

corrected the actual event to the campaign against the

Emirate of Crete The Emirate of Crete ( ar, إقريطش, Iqrīṭish or , ''Iqrīṭiya''; gr, Κρήτη, Krētē) was an Islamic state that existed on the Mediterranean island of Crete from the late 820s to the reconquest of the island by the Byzantine Empi ...

in 949. It had a small garrison of only 905 men, but a disproportionate number of higher officers: according to the so-called ''

Escorial Taktikon The ''Escorial Taktikon'' (other spellings: ''Escurial Taktikon'', ''Escorial Tacticon'', ''Escurial Tacticon''), also known as the ''Taktikon Oikonomides'' after Nicolas Oikonomides who first edited it, is a list of Byzantine offices, dignities, ...

'', compiled sometime in 971/975, it had no fewer than 22 "great" and 47 "junior" '' tourmarchai''. Its mention in the ''Escorial Taktikon'', where it is listed between the themes of Tephrike and Romanopolis, is the last occurrence in the sources, meaning that the theme probably ceased to exist shortly after.

References

Sources

* * * {{cite book , first=Nicolas , last=Oikonomides , author-link=Nicolas Oikonomides , title=Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles , language=fr , location=Paris , year=1972 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RFdmAAAAMAAJ 10th-century establishments in the Byzantine Empire Themes of the Byzantine Empire Byzantine forts