Magister militum

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Magister militum (Latin for "Master of the Soldiers") was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine. Used alone, the term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the emperor remaining the supreme commander) of the Empire.

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The title of magister militum was created around 315, when Emperor Constantine the Great deprived the praetorian prefects of their military functions. Initially two posts were created, one as head of the foot troops, as the magister peditum, and one for the more prestigious horse troops, the magister equitum. The latter title had existed since Republican times, as the second-in-command to a Roman dictator. Under Constantine's successors, the title was also established at a territorial level, with one magister militum for every praetorian prefecture (per Galliae, per Italiam, per Illyricum, per Orientem). As such they were directly in command of the local mobile field army of the comitatenses, composed mostly of cavalry, which acted as a rapid reaction force.

In the Western Empire, a "commander-in-chief" was sometimes appointed in the form of the Magister utriusquae militiae, the "Master of both forces (foot and horse)". This powerful office was often the power behind the throne and was held by commanders like Stilicho, Ricimer and others. In the East, the two senior generals were appointed to the office of magister militum praesentalis, "Master of soldiers in the Presence (of the Emperor)". During the reign of Emperor Justinian I, with the increasing military threats and the expansion of the Eastern Empire, three new posts were created: the magister militum per Armeniam in the Armenian provinces, formerly part of the jurisdiction of the magister militum per Orientem, the magister militum per Africam in the reconquered African provinces (534), with a subordinate magister peditum , and the magister militum Spaniae (ca. 562).

In the course of the 6th century, internal and external crises in the provinces often necessitated the temporary union of the supreme regional civil authority with the office of the magister militum. In the establishment of the exarchates of Ravenna and Carthage in 584, this practice found its first permanent expression. Indeed, after the loss of the eastern provinces to the Muslim conquest in the 640s, the surviving field armies and their commanders formed the first themata.

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