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 is a list of Byzantine Emperors.

Note: It is difficult to determine when exactly the Roman Empire ends and the Byzantine Empire begins; Diocletian split the Roman Empire into eastern and western halves for administrative purposes in 284. Candidates for the "first" Byzantine emperor include Constantine I (the first Christian emperor, who moved the capital to Constantinople), Valens (the Battle of Adrianople (378) provides one of the traditional cut-off events to mark the start of the medieval period), Arcadius (treating Theodosius I as the last emperor of a single Roman Empire), and Zeno I (as the last western emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed during his reign). Others date the beginning of the Empire even as late as Heraclius (who replaced the traditional Roman imperial title of "Augustus" with "Basileus", the Greek word for "Emperor", and discontinued the use of Latin by making Greek the official language). Numismatists note the monetary reforms of Anastasius I in 498, which used the Greek numbering system. Of course, the Byzantines themselves continued to think of their empire as "Roman" for over a millennium.


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Justinian II

Constantinian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Valentinian-Theodosian dynasty

Dynasty of Leo

Justinian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Heraclian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Isaurian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Amorian (or Phrygian) dynasty

Macedonian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Ducaian-Comnenan dynasty

Angelan dynasty

Lascaran dynasty (in exile in the Empire of Nicaea during the time of the Latin Empire)

Palaeologan Dynasty (restored at Constantinople)