Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart (41 page)

Toxotes
: The Byzantine archer, lightly armoured with a felt jacket and armed with a composite bow and a dagger.

 

Tourma
: A subdivision of a Byzantine
thema
, commanded by a
tourmarches
. Each
tourma
was comprised of some two thousand soldiers of the
thema
army and encompassed a geographical subset of the
thema
lands.

 

Varangoi
: An elite infantry unit of the Byzantine army, employed as a personal bodyguard to the emperor. These axemen were primarily Rus or Germanic, and were thought to be both loyal and fierce in battle.

 

Vasilikoploimon
: Byzantine imperial fleet stationed in the Bosphorus. This fleet was responsible for patrolling the Propontus Sea and for transporting campaign armies.

 

Yalma
: A close-fitting, long-sleeved and knee-length silk shirt worn by Turkic peoples.

 

*The use of a sash to denote rank is backed up by historical texts, but the sash colours stated are speculative.

 

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