STUDY OF TAGMA OR PRAETORIAN REGIMENTS

希腊语“TAGMA”的意思是军事单位。然而，拜占庭中期的塔格玛，从8世纪中叶开始，在首都或附近作为一个禁卫团出现。直到9世纪初，皇帝组织了4个骑士团，他们主要扮演着支持皇帝或干预中央政府政治进程的角色。在这项研究中，我们使用了君士坦丁七世在10世纪编辑的《de Cerimoniis aurae byzantinae》一书，以获得关于骑兵Tagma力量实力的更可信的数据。正文包含了一些关于重新征服克里特岛的军事远征的数据。根据文本，每个骑兵塔玛的士兵驻扎在君士坦丁堡附近，大约有1000-1500人的力量。我们计算4个Tagmata的总数约为4000-5000个。因此，可能Tagmata太小了，不能称之为拜占庭帝国的“中心力量”。

Greek "tagma" means military unit in general. The tagma in the Middle Byzantine Period, however, appeared from the middle of the 8th century on as a praetorian regiment in or near the capital. Until the beginning of the 9th century, 4 cavarly tagmata had been organized by emperors and they played mainly the roles to back up emperors or to intervene to political process in the central government. We can be aware of formation of tagma as an official military force in the central government in the middle of the 9th century.In this research to obtain more trustworthy data about force strength of cavalry tagma, we use the text of "De cerimoniis aurae byzantinae", which was edited by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century. The text contains some data about the military expeditions to reconquer the Crete. According to the text, soldiers of each cavalry tagma were stationed near Constantinople, and have about 1,000-1,500 force strength. We count the total of the 4 tagmata about 4,000-5,000 in total. So probably the tagmata were too small to call "central forces" of the Byzantine Empire.