Byzantine navy

incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire developed c. 672

thumb|right|250px|Illustration from the Madrid Skylitzes showing the Byzantine fleet repelling the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 941, and the use of the spurs to smash the oars of the Rus' vessels. Boarding actions and hand-to-hand fighting determined the outcome of most naval battles in the Middle Ages.

navy of the Byzantine Empire

title for the commander-in-chief of the Byzantine Navy

The Mardaites (; ) or al-Jarajima (; /ALA-LC: Jarājimah) were early Christians following Chalcedonian Christianity in the Nur Mountains. Little is known about their ethnicity, but it has been speculated that they might have been Persians (see, for a purely linguistic hypothesis, the Amardi, located south of the Caspian Sea in classical times) with other theories placing them as Armenians or even Greeks native to the Levant. Their other Arabic name, al-Jarājimah, suggests that some were natives of the town Jurjum in Cilicia; the word marada in Arabic is the plural of mared, which could mean a g

Byzantine district (theme)

A droungarios, also spelled drungarios (, ) and sometimes anglicized as Drungary, was a military rank of the late Roman and Byzantine empires, signifying the commander of a formation known as droungos.

Byzantine province in the northern Aegean Sea

Byzantine district (theme)

Byzantine district (theme)

The Gasmouloi (singular: Gasmoulos; ) or Vasmouloi (singular: Vasmoulos; Greek: ) were the descendants of mixed Byzantine Greek and "Latin" (West European, most often Italian) unions during the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire. As the Gasmouloi were enrolled as marines in the Byzantine navy by Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1259–1261), the term eventually lost its ethnic connotations and came to be applied generally to those owing a military service from the early 14th century on.

The Karabisianoi (Medieval Greek ), sometimes anglicized as the Carabisians, were the main forces of the Byzantine navy from the mid-seventh until the early eighth centuries. The name derives from a term for ships (; cf. caravel), and means "people of the ships". The Karabisianoi were the first new and permanent naval establishment of the Byzantine Empire, formed to confront the early Muslim conquests at sea. They were disbanded and replaced with a series of maritime themes sometime in 718–730.