Oh man my first post...so I'm a long time student of Rhomanian economic and military history whose doing a project on where the heck the infantry of the Komnenian Army came from (ie: were they "thematic" levies or standing troops like the Legionaries of old?). So here is an interesting what if scenario. Lets say that the Theme system of Anatolia and the Balkans does not completely collapse, perhaps due to Manzikert being less disastrous and more of a statement (the emperor is not captured, the rearguard drives off the Seljuqs, but Turkish raids continue in Anatolia). What would Romanus IV's reformed Themata looked like if he were given more time to muster and drill them. It seems that he was very focused on using these troops and seems in my opinion to have been trying to form them into a type of standing army to fight in the ruined Armenian borderlands. Would these thematic troops have become full-time, revived provincial tagmata? (similar to those of the Komnenian Army). Thanks for any input you can give, I am a huge fan of BG's Issac's Empire and Elfwine's Eagle of the Bosphorus too...