 The exact date of the theme's establishment is unclear; a "strategos" of Dyrrhachium is attested in the "Taktikon Uspensky" of , but several seals of "strategoi" dating from the previous decades survive.J.B.Bury proposed its creation alongside the themes of the Peloponnese and Cephallenia in the early 9th century, with the historian Jadran Ferluga putting the date of its establishment in the reign of Emperor Nikephoros I ().