The wars of reconquest on the eastern frontier in this period and the general military orientation of imperial policy have brought to the fore a new class of aristocracy, whose wealth and power are based on land ownership and who hold most of the higher military posts.

Trade and industry in the cities are so rigidly controlled by the government that almost the only profitable form of investment for private enterprise is the acquisition of landed property.

The military aristocracy, therefore, has taken to buying up the farms of free peasants and soldiers and reducing their owners to varying forms of dependence.

As the empire grows stronger, the rich become richer.

Given the system of agriculture prevailing in Anatolia and the Balkans, every failure of crops, every famine, drought, or plague produces a quota of destitute peasant-soldiers willing to turn themselves and their land over to the protection of a prosperous and ambitious landlord.

The first emperor to see the danger in this development is Romanus I Lekapenos, who, in 922, passes laws to defend the small landowners against the acquisitive instincts of the “powerful”; for he realizes that the economic as well as the military strength of the empire depends on the maintenance within the theme system of the institution of free, yet taxpaying, soldier-farmers and peasants in village communities.

(Only freemen owe military service.)