''Toparchēs'' ( el, τοπάρχης, "place-ruler"), anglicized as toparch, is a Greek term for a governor or ruler of a district and was later applied to the territory where the toparch exercised his authority. In

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 ...

times the term came to be applied to independent or semi-independent rulers in the periphery of the Byzantine world.

Hellenistic usage

The term originates in

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

times, when ''topos'' (τόπος, "place, locale") was established as an administrative unit, most notably in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, but also among the

Seleucids The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the M ...

and

Attalids The Kingdom of Pergamon or Attalid kingdom was a Greek state during the Hellenistic period that ruled much of the Western part of Asia Minor from its capital city of Pergamon. It was ruled by the Attalid dynasty (; grc-x-koine, Δυναστ ...

, although less well attested in comparison to Ptolemaic practice. The Ptolemaic ''topos'' comprised a number of villages (''komai'', sing. ''komē'') under a ''toparchēs'' and was in turn a subdivision of the ''nomos'' ( nome or province), which was governed by a '' strategos''. In Ptolemaic Egypt, the ''toparches'' was usually an Egyptian, and was responsible for the collection of revenue and administration, much as the '' nomarchēs'' for the ''nomos'' and the '' komarchēs'' for each ''komē''. In an account, the ''toparchies'' constituted the ''hyparchies'' such as

Gaulanitis The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

Galilea Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galile ...

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first ...

Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...

Perea Perea or Peraea (Greek: Περαία, " the country beyond") was the portion of the kingdom of Herod the Great occupying the eastern side of the Jordan River valley, from about one third the way down the Jordan River segment connecting the Sea ...

, and

Idumaea Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east.N ...

during

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

times. The title remained in use under the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

in the

Greek East Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of Medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the ...

, for the governor of a district. Such districts were then called "toparchies" (sing. toparchy, from Greek τοπαρχία, ''toparchia'').

Byzantine Empire

In the 6th century, in the ''

Novellae Constitutiones The ("new constitutions"; grc, Νεαραὶ διατάξεις), or ''Justinian's Novels'', are now considered one of the four major units of Roman law initiated by Roman emperor Justinian I in the course of his long reign (AD 527–565). The o ...

'' of Emperor

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...

, the term ''toparchēs'' was used to encompass all local magistrates, both civilian and military. More often, however, Byzantine writers use the term to refer to local monarchs, especially during the 10th–13th centuries, when, according to the Byzantinist

Paul Lemerle Paul Lemerle (; 22 April 1903 – 17 July 1989) was a French Byzantinist, born in Paris. Biography Lemerle taught at the ''École française d'Athènes'' (1931–1941), at the ''Faculté des Lettres'' of the University of Burgundy at Dijon (1942� ...

, "a ''toparchēs'' is the independent ruler of a foreign territory adjoining the Empire... He is in some manner under the influence of the Empire, as it is supposed that he may rebel against the Byzantines". This usage extended not only to actual breakaway or ''de facto'' autonomous Byzantine governors, who appear during the military crises and administrative disintegration of the 11th–12th centuries, but was also applied to independent rulers, usually on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire (e.g. the

Emir 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 Siege of Chandax, the reconquest of the island by t ...

, various Turkish lords in

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

, or the rulers of

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

), of territories which the Byzantines considered rightfully theirs. In this context, the late 11th-century writer

Kekaumenos Kekaumenos ( el, Κεκαυμένος) is the family name of the otherwise unidentified Byzantine author of the '' Strategikon'', a manual on military and household affairs composed c. 1078. He was apparently of Georgian-Armenian origin and the gra ...

dedicates a large part of his '' Strategikon'' to advising the ''toparchēs'' on his conduct and dealings with the emperor and the other Byzantine governors.

Hellenistic usage

Byzantine Empire

References

Further reading