The theme of Paphlagonia and its governing
strategos are first mentioned in November 826, and the theme seems to have been established c. 820. The territory of the theme corresponds roughly to the
late antique province of
Paphlagonia, which had been subsumed in the themes of
Opsikion and
Boukellarion. Its administrative and ecclesiastical capital, as during Antiquity, was
Gangra. Warren Treadgold – who notably believes that Paphlagonia belonged to the
Armeniakon, and not the Boukellarion – suggested that its re-emergence as a separate province was linked with the new threat of
Rus' naval activity in the
Black Sea. According to the
Arab geographers
Ibn Khordadbeh and
Ibn al-Faqih, the province numbered 5,000 troops and five fortified places. A notable exception to the usual thematic hierarchy is the existence of a
katepano, in charge of a
naval squadron, with his seat at
Amastris. After the
Battle of Manzikert in 1071, most of the region was lost to the
Seljuk Turks; the campaigns of
John II Komnenos in the 1130s managed to recover firm control of the coast. The interior became disputed territory, John II took
Kastamon and Gangra but the latter soon returned to Turkish hands. After the
Fourth Crusade, Paphlagonia came under the control of
David Komnenos, but in 1214 the
Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris seized the western parts up to Amastris. These remained in Byzantine hands until the late 14th century, when they were taken over by the Turks or the
Genoese. ==References==