Justinian II

Justinian II (Greek: Ἰουστινιανός, romanized: Ioustinianós; Latin: Iustinianus; 668/69 – 4 November 711), nicknamed "the Slit-Nosed" (Greek: ὁ Ῥινότμητος, romanized: ho Rhīnótmētos), was the last Byzantine emperor of the Heraclian dynasty, reigning from 685 to 695 and again from 705 to 711. Like his namesake, Justinian I, Justinian II was an ambitious and passionate ruler who was keen to restore the Roman Empire to its former glories. However, he responded brutally to any opposition to his will and lacked the finesse of his father, Constantine IV. Consequently, he generated enormous opposition to his reign, resulting in his deposition in 695 in a popular uprising. He only returned to the throne in 705 with the help of a Bulgarian army. His second reign was even more despotic than the first, and in 711 he was killed by mutinous soldiers.

Justinian II was the eldest son of Emperor Constantine IV and Anastasia. His father appointed him as his heir sometime after October 682, upon the deposition of his uncles Heraclius and Tiberius. In 685, at the age of sixteen, Justinian II succeeded his father as sole emperor.

As a result of Constantine IV's victories, the political situation in the Eastern provinces of the Empire was stable when Justinian ascended the throne. After a preliminary strike against the Arabs in Armenia, Justinian managed to augment the sum paid by the Umayyad Caliphs as an annual tribute, and to regain control of part of Cyprus. The incomes of the provinces of Armenia and Iberia were divided among the two empires. In 687, as part of his agreements with the Caliphate, Justinian removed from their native Lebanon 12,000 Christian Mardaites, who continually resisted the Arabs. Additional resettlement efforts, aimed at the Mardaites and inhabitants of Cyprus, allowed Justinian to reinforce naval forces depleted by earlier conflicts. In 688, Justinian signed a treaty with the Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan which rendered Cyprus neutral ground, with its tax revenue split.

This enabled Justinian to turn his attention to the Balkans, where much imperial territory had been lost to Slavic tribes. In 687 Justinian transferred cavalry troops from Anatolia to Thrace. With a great military campaign in 688–689, Justinian defeated the Slavs of Macedonia and was finally able to enter Thessalonica, the second most important Byzantine city in Europe.

The subdued Slavs were resettled in Anatolia, where they were to provide a military force of 30,000 men. Emboldened by the increase of his forces in Anatolia, Justinian now renewed the war against the Arabs, winning a battle in Armenia in 693. The Arabs met the challenge by bribing the new army to revolt. Most of the Slavic troops defected during the subsequent Battle of Sebastopolis, where Justinian was comprehensively defeated and compelled to flee to the Propontis. There, according to Theophanes, he vented his frustration by slaughtering as many of the Slavs in and around Opsikion as he could lay his hands on. Meanwhile, a Patrician named Symbatius rebelled in Armenia and opened up the province to the Arabs, who proceeded to conquer it in 694–695.

In domestic affairs, the Emperor's bloody persecution of the Manichaeans, and his suppression of the popular traditions of those who were not of Chalcedonian origin, caused dissension within the Church. In 692 Justinian convened the so-called Quinisext Council at Constantinople to put his religious policies into effect. The Council expanded and clarified the rulings of the Fifth and Sixth ecumenical councils, but by highlighting differences between the Eastern and Western observances (such as the marriage of priests and the Catholic practice of fasting on Saturdays) it also compromised Byzantine relations with the Catholic Church. The emperor ordered Pope Sergius I arrested, but the militias of Rome and Ravenna sided with the Pope and rebelled.

Justinian contributed to the development of the thematic organization of the Empire, creating a new theme of Hellas in southern Greece and numbering the heads of the four major themes of the Opsikion, Anatolikon, Thracesion and Armeniakon, and the naval Karabisianoi corps, among the senior administrators of the Empire. He also sought to protect the rights of peasant freeholders (who served as the main recruitment pool for the imperial armies) against attempts by the aristocracy to acquire their land. This put him in direct conflict with some of the largest landholders in the Empire.

While his land policies threatened the aristocracy, his tax policy was very unpopular with the common people. Through his agents Stephen and Theodotos, the emperor raised the funds to gratify his sumptuous tastes and his mania for erecting costly buildings. This, plus ongoing religious discontent, conflicts with the aristocracy, and displeasure with his resettlement policy eventually drove his subjects into rebellion. In 695 the population rose under the leadership of Leontius, the strategos of Hellas, and proclaimed him Emperor. Justinian was deposed and his nose was cut off (later to be replaced by a solid gold replica of his original) to prevent his again seeking the throne: such mutilation was common in Byzantine culture. He was exiled to Cherson in the Crimea. Leontius, after a reign of three years, was in turn dethroned and imprisoned by Apsimarus, who then assumed the throne.