Justinian II
Justinian II, known as Rhinotmetus (the Split-nosed) (669-711) was Byzantine emperor from 685 to 695 and again from 704 to 711. He succeeded his father, Constantine IV, at the age of sixteen.His reign was unhappy both at home and abroad. After a successful invasion he made a truce with the Arabs, granting them joint possession of Armenia, Iberia and Cyprus. By removing 12,000 Christian Maronites from their native Lebanon, he gave the Arabs command over Asia Minor, leading to their conquest of Armenia in 692.
In 688 Justinian decisively defeated the Bulgars. Meanwhile the bitter dissensions caused in the Church by the emperor's bloody persecution of the Manichaeans, and the rapacity with which (through his creatures Stephanus and Theodatus) he extorted the means of gratifying his sumptuous tastes and his mania for erecting costly buildings, drove his subjects into rebellion.
In 695 they rose under Leontius and, after cutting off the emperor's nose (whence his surname), banished him to Cherson in the Crimea. Leontius, after a reign of three years, was in turn dethroned and imprisoned by Tiberius Absimarus, who next assumed the purple.
Justinian meanwhile had escaped from Cherson and married Theodora, sister of Busirus, khan of the Khazars. Compelled by the intrigues of Tiberius to quit his new home, he fled to Terbelis, king of the Bulgars. With an army of 15,000 horsemen Justinian pounced upon Constantinople, slew his rivals Leontius and Tiberius along with thousands of their partisans, and once more ascended the throne in 704.
His second reign was marked by an unsuccessful war against the Bulgars under Terbelis, Arab victories in Asia Minor, devastating expeditions sent against his own cities of Ravenna and Cherson where he inflicted horrible punishment upon the disaffected nobles and refugees, and the same cruel rapacity toward his subjects. Justinian met Pope Constantine I and the two negotiated a settlement.
Justinian's tyrannical rule provoked another rising against him. Cherson revolted; under the leadership of Bardanes, the city held out against a counter-attack and soon the forces sent to suppress the rebellion joined it. The rebels then seized the capital and proclaimed Bardanes as emperor; Justinian was forced to flee and was assassinated in Asia Minor in December 711. He was the last of the house of Heraclius.
A fictional account of Justinian's life is given in the 1998 novel Justinian by H.N. Turteltaub.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.