Merarches

The ''merarchēs'' (), sometimes Anglicized as merarch, was a Byzantine military rank roughly equivalent to a divisional general.

History

The title derives from the Greek words ''meros'' (Greek: μέρος, "part, division") and '' archein'' (, "to rule, command"). The term ''merarchēs'' is attested for the first time in the late 6th century in the '' Stratēgikon'', a military manual attributed to the Byzantine emperor Maurice (r. 582–602), although the historian Warren Treadgold has suggested that the rank and the corresponding formation date back to the reign of Emperor Zeno (r. 474–499). In the time of the ''Stratēgikon'', a field army (commanded by a ''stratēgos'') comprised usually three ''merē'', each probably some five to seven thousand-strong.. The ''meros'' in turn was divided into several ''moirai'' consisting of a number of '' tagmata'' or ''banda'', each commanded by a '' doux''...

This division was maintained in the later Byzantine army, although already from the 7th century, the term ''merarchēs'' became used less frequently, being dropped in favour of '' tourmarchēs''; likewise, the ''tourma'' replaced the ''meros'' both in technical and common parlance. The equivalence of the two terms is explicitly attested in the '' Taktika'' of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912). The ''tourmai'' were now the major territorial and tactical subdivisions of a provincial army corps ('' thema''). Each ''thema'', again under a ''stratēgos'', was normally divided into three ''tourmai'', which in turn were further divided into '' droungoi'' (analogous to the older ''moirai'') and then ''banda''. Depending on the size of the ''thema'', the number of the ''banda'' varied, and consequently the numerical strength for each ''meros''/''tourma'' could range from circa 1,000 to 5,000 men.

Since the ''merarchēs'' – also found in the corrupted form ''meriarchēs'' (Greek: μεριάρχης) – is sometimes distinguished in the sources (e.g. the '' Klētorologion'' of Philotheos) from the other ''tourmarchai'', the scholar John B. Bury suggested that in the 9th and 10th centuries, the ''merarchēs'' was a distinct post, held by the ''tourmarchēs'' attached as an aide and deputy to the thematic ''stratēgos'' with no geographical area under his command, as opposed to the two "regular" ''tourmarchai''. The discovery of a seal of a ''merarchēs'' of Knossos shows that they did hold territorial assignments, leading Alexander Kazhdan to reject Bury's hypothesis in the ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium''. Military historian John Haldon, in his edition of the ''Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions'', in essence agreed with Bury's proposition, regarding the ''merarchēs'' as the commander of the ''tourma'' comprising the district where the thematic headquarters were located. According to Haldon, this would also explain his apparently lower rank relatively to the other ''tourmarchai'', since he was a member of the ''stratēgoss staff and not an independent commander..

There are references to a Byzantine ''miriarcha'' in two Latin chronicles of southern Italy in the 11th century. The meaning of the title in this context is unclear and the name of the official is not recorded.

The title has been revived in the modern Hellenic Army, where ''merarchos'' (Greek: μέραρχος) is the term used for the CO of a Division or ''merarchia'' (Greek: μεραρχία), regardless of his actual rank.

References

Sources

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*{{cite book, last=Treadgold, first=Warren T., title=Byzantium and Its Army, 284–1081, year=1995 , location=Stanford, California, publisher=Stanford University Press, isbn=0-8047-3163-2 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xfV0LkMNaLUC

Byzantine military offices