WI Macedonian Dynasty is overthrown in 913 AD?

As i said above i tend to believe that if Constantine Doukas had succeeded in his coup then we might have seen a restructure or the Thematic system in order to modernise it and cover its weaknesses...
Well the question is... how?

The strength of the themes as I understand it is they provided a reasonably effective military force (won as much as it lost) on the spot to confront enemy invasions. This would possibly weaken the enemy but more importantly it would slow them down so that the real army could arrive from Constantinople and fight them before they ravaged half the empire. So defensive.

Assuming that they're still at the height of their medieval power, you are going to think offensively. The basic dynamics are pretty obvious. I have no idea how accurate wiki's Byzantine economy article is, but it throws around a lot of numbers and has a few major sources (Treadgold for instance) and online papers.

You want an army that is probably going to be campaigning a lot. Professionals. But also one that won't revolt if the other guys offer more money. At the same time you want to establish some internal defenses and you always have that two-front problem.

Politically you don't want the aristocracy growing in power enough to muck things up. But you also don't want to bring all power to the peasants because then your farms stay small and you can't take advantage of economies of scale for agriculture. You also want to increase your population if possible, having the aristocracy kick out the peasants who flood the cities is one option. It's an interesting problem. I can think of creative ways around it (and indeed, have written them into my own TL in Spain) but not that are feasible at this time for the emperors in Constantinople.
 
I would like to point out like othees said the main reason for turkish conquest was because of a disintegration of the militar, the theme was disintegrating but it was military troops which were more important. After Basil it was the civil aristocracy which siezed power in constantinople. The civil ariatocracy focused more on living in luxury putting little to no funds in the army, focusing on Adminstration and public projects, so it wasnt that the them system was at fault but what was at fault was the civil aristocracy ignoring and weakeaning the military. Plus at manzikert if that asshole andronikus had not betrayed Diogenes then Romanus would have won....
So i agree that Constantine doukas would focus more on the military. After all the doukas havent yet become civil aristocracy. So even without a theme system as long as constantine focuses his most attention on the military then it is easy for them to hold off the turks later on.
Please dont even let me get started on the Ciivil wars as others have said weakening byzantium.
 
Can't see Constantine Ducas doing more than the Macedonians did along those lines, though.

The Macedonian dynasty did a good job of maintaining and even expanding the empire - compare its position when Basil I took over to when Basil II was sent to his Maker.
 
When did the Italian cities get their trading priveleges? Was this another expedient of the Macedonians to raise money for their offensive army, or did it happen later?
 
they got their trading privileges when Alexios 1 came to power and needed the aid of the venetian navy to fight the Normans.
 
Basil did make a deal with Venice, which I suppose counts, but it was lowering the custom dues they paid - and in his day Venice was more or less an Imperial vassal, or not far from it.
 
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