page_title: Thomas the Slav
section_title: Early life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas the Slav / Early life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Skyllitzes Matritensis, fol. 29v, detail. Miniature: Thomas the Slav flees to the Arabs. Text from the Chronicle of John Skylitzes: "... Here he entered the service of a senator but became so undisciplined and arrogant that he even dared to insult his master's marriage bed. Caught in the act, he could not beat reproach and he was terrified of the kind of punishments reserved for such crimes, so he fled to Hagarens. ..." (Translated by John Wortley, in: John Skylitzes: A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811-1057: Translation and Notes, p. 32) References: Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis Historiarum. Editio Princeps. Rec. Ioannes Thurn, p. 29, in: Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 5 Series Berolinensis, 1973 Tsamakda V.: The illustrated chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes in Madrid, p. 70 Grabar A., Manoussacas M.: L'illustration du manuscript de Skylitzes de Madrid, p. 33 Deutsch: Skyllitzes Matritensis, Fol. 29v, Detail Miniatur: Thomas der Slawe sucht Zuflucht bei den Arabern. Text aus der Chronik von Johannes Skylitzes: "... ein Mitglied des Senates habe ihn in seine Dienste genommen. Dabei habe er seine Geilheit und seinen Hochmut so weit getrieben, daß er es wagte, das Ehebett seines Herrn zu schänden. Als er dabei ertappt wurde, sei ihm die Schmach zuviel geworden, er habe auch die Strafen, die für derartige Frevler festgesetzt sind, gefürchtet, und deshalb habe er bei den Agarenern (Arabern) Zuflucht gesucht. ..." (Synopsis Historion S. 29 übersetzt von Hans Thurn, in: Byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber 15, S. 58-59)
context_page_description: Thomas the Slav was a 9th-century Byzantine military commander, most notable for leading a wide-scale revolt in 821–23 against Emperor Michael II the Amorian.
  An army officer of Slavic origin from the Pontus region, Thomas rose to prominence, along with the future emperors Michael II and Leo V the Armenian, under the protection of general Bardanes Tourkos. After Bardanes' failed rebellion in 803, Thomas fell into obscurity until Leo V's rise to the throne, when Thomas was raised to a senior military command in central Asia Minor. After the murder of Leo and usurpation of the throne by Michael the Amorian, Thomas revolted, claiming the throne for himself. Thomas quickly secured support from most of the themes and troops in Asia Minor, defeated Michael's initial counter-attack and concluded an alliance with the Abbasid Caliphate. After winning over the maritime themes and their ships as well, he crossed with his army to Europe and laid siege to Constantinople. The imperial capital withstood Thomas's attacks by land and sea, while Michael II called for help from the Bulgarian ruler khan Omurtag.
context_section_description: The 11th-century Theophanes Continuatus states that Thomas was descended from South Slavs resettled in Asia Minor by successive Byzantine emperors, while the 10th-century chronicler Genesios calls him "Thomas from Lake Gouzourou, of Armenian race". Most modern scholars support his Slavic descent and believe his birthplace to have been near Gaziura in the Pontus.
  Hence his epithet of "the Slav", which has been applied to him only in modern times. Nothing is known about his family and early life, except that his parents were poor and that Thomas himself had received no education. Given that he was between 50 and 60 years old at the time of the rebellion, he was probably born around 760.
  Two different accounts of Thomas's life are recounted in both Genesios and Theophanes Continuatus. According to the first account, Thomas first appeared in 803 accompanying general Bardanes Tourkos, and pursued a military career until launching his revolt in late 820. In the second version, he came to Constantinople as a poor youth and entered the service of a man with the high court rank of patrikios. Then, discovered trying to commit adultery with his master's wife, Thomas fled to the Arabs in Syria, where he remained for 25 years. Pretending to be the murdered emperor Constantine VI (r. 780–797), he then led an Arab-sponsored invasion of Asia Minor, but was defeated and punished. Classical and Byzantine scholar J.B. Bury tried to reconcile the two narratives, placing Thomas's flight to the Abbasid Caliphate at around 788 and then having him return to Byzantine service before 803, while the Russian scholar Alexander Vasiliev interpreted the sources as implying that Thomas fled to the Caliphate at Constantine VI's deposition in 797, and that his participation in Bardanes's revolt must be discounted entirely. The second version of Thomas's story is explicitly preferred by Genesios and Theophanes Continuatus, and is the only one recorded in 9th-century sources, namely the chronicle of George the Monk and the Life of Saints David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos. Nevertheless, the French Byzantinist Paul Lemerle came to consider it an unreliable later tradition created by his rival Michael II to discredit Thomas, and rejected it altogether, preferring to rely on the first account alone. Most modern scholars follow him in this interpretation.
  The first tradition relates that Thomas served as a spatharios (staff officer) to Bardanes Tourkos, the monostrategos ("single-general", i.e. commander-in-chief) of the eastern themes, who in 803 rose in rebellion against Emperor Nikephoros I (r. 802–811). Alongside Thomas were two other young spatharioi in Bardanes's retinue, who formed a fraternal association: Leo the Armenian, the future Leo V, and Michael the Amorian, the future Michael II. According to a later hagiographic tradition, before launching his revolt, Bardanes, in the company of his three young protégés, is said to have visited a monk near Philomelion who was reputed to foresee the future. The monk predicted what would indeed happen: that Bardanes's revolt would fail, that Leo and Michael would both become emperors, and that Thomas would be acclaimed emperor and killed. When Bardanes did in fact rise up, he failed to win any widespread support. Leo and Michael soon abandoned him and defected to the imperial camp and were rewarded with senior military posts. Thomas alone remained loyal to Bardanes until his surrender. In the aftermath of Bardanes's failure, Thomas disappears from the sources for ten years. Bury suggests that he fled (for a second time according to his interpretation) to the Arabs, a view accepted by a number of other scholars, such as Romilly James Heald Jenkins. The historian Warren Treadgold, however, argues that Thomas stayed in the empire and that may have even remained in active military service, and explains his obscurity by Thomas's association with Bardanes, which hampered his career.
  In July 813, Leo the Armenian became emperor and quickly rewarded his old companions, giving them command over elite military forces. Mi
caption: Miniature from the Madrid Skylitzes depicting Thomas's supposed flight to the Arabs
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