Table of Contents
- A Dethroned Emperor in Exile and the Shadow of a Second Reign
- The World of Byzantium on the Eve of Upheaval
- The Young Justinian II: Heir to a Glorious Name
- First Reign, First Ruin: From Promise to Tyranny
- The Day the Nose Fell: Mutilation, Humiliation, Survival
- From Cherson to the Khazars: An Emperor among Exiles
- A Bride from the Steppe and a Plot in the Dark
- Across the Steppe and Sea: Justinian’s Daring Escape
- Bulgars at the Gates: The Pact with Khan Tervel
- The Night Assault on Constantinople and the Return of the Purple
- justinian ii second reign: A Broken Man on a Restored Throne
- Rage, Vengeance, and Blood: Purges in the Queen of Cities
- Governance under the Shadow of Fear: Church, Army, and Bureaucracy
- Wider Horizons: Arabs, Bulgars, and the Contest for Survival
- The Empire at Home: Cities, Peasants, and the Price of Imperial Obsession
- A Family on the Edge: The Empress Theodora and the Boy Tiberius
- Allies Turned Executioners: The Fall of Justinian’s Second Empire
- The Death of Justinian II and the End of the Heraclian Dynasty
- Memory, Legend, and the Afterlife of a Mutilated Emperor
- Conclusion
- FAQs
- External Resource
- Internal Link
Article Summary: In the summer of 705, an exiled, mutilated emperor named Justinian II appeared before the walls of Constantinople with a Bulgar army at his back, demanding his throne for a second time. This article follows the arc of his life from privileged heir to deposed tyrant, and then into the dark, obsessive chapter known as the justinian ii second reign. We move through the alleys of Constantinople, the windswept steppe, and the camps of Bulgar horsemen to understand how one man’s trauma reshaped an empire. Along the way, the narrative explores the politics of exile, the brutality of Byzantine palace coups, and the complicated bargains emperors struck with foreign powers to survive. The justinian ii second reign is shown not only as a personal revenge story, but as a symptom of a wider imperial crisis, with religious tensions, Arab expansion, and internal factionalism all colliding. Ordinary citizens, courtiers, monks, and soldiers appear in the story, bearing the weight of an emperor’s rage and fear. By the end, Justinian’s bloody restoration and equally bloody fall mark the death of a dynasty and the beginning of a more uncertain age, reminding us how fragile imperial legitimacy could be. Above all, the tale of the justinian ii second reign becomes a mirror for the Byzantine Empire itself: resilient, theatrical, and always on the edge of disaster.
A Dethroned Emperor in Exile and the Shadow of a Second Reign
In the year 705, as dusk thickened over the Sea of Marmara, the skyline of Constantinople burned faintly red with the last light. On the opposite shore, beyond the tangled defenses, fires dotted the camp of a foreign army. The guards atop the Theodosian Walls—those triple ramparts that had defied Huns and Persians—could see riders moving like shadows among the tents. Somewhere among them, rumor whispered, was a figure the city had tried to erase: Justinian, once emperor, now noseless exile, returned from the edge of the world to reclaim what had been torn from him.
For a decade, he had been a ghost—a mutilated reminder that Byzantium did not simply depose failed rulers; it marked them as unfit, cutting away their claims with knife and branding iron. Yet here he was, breathing, scheming, wrapped in furs among Bulgar horsemen under Khan Tervel. The city that had spat him out now faced the unthinkable: a deposed emperor, alive and enraged, knocking at its gates with foreign steel behind him. It was from this moment of electric tension, this drama outside the walls, that the story of the justinian ii second reign truly begins.
But this was only the beginning. To understand why Constantinople would eventually open its gates again to a man it had mutilated and banished, we must return to an earlier world: to an empire steeped in ceremony yet living in constant fear, to a teenage emperor intoxicated by power, and to a dynasty whose name had once stood for greatness. We must walk through corridors of porphyry and damp stone prisons alike, tracing the transformation of Justinian from heir to butchered victim, from victim to avenger, and finally from avenger to doomed tyrant in his own second act.
The saga of his return is not merely the tale of one man. It is also the story of the Byzantine Empire in the late seventh and early eighth centuries—battered by Arab conquests, brittle from internal quarrels, and haunted by the ghost of its own Golden Age. The justinian ii second reign, when it finally dawned after that night assault on the city, was like the aftershock of a great earthquake: an attempt to restore, by violence and willpower, what history and circumstance had already broken.
The World of Byzantium on the Eve of Upheaval
To grasp the significance of Justinian’s return, one must stand inside the world he inherited. By the time he first took the throne in 685, the Byzantine Empire was an exhausted survivor. The glory days of his illustrious namesake, Justinian I—who had raised Hagia Sophia and reconquered Italy and North Africa—lay more than a century in the past. Those conquests had drained the treasury and overextended the imperial arms. The empire of Justinian II was smaller, heavily militarized, and ringed by enemies.
In the East, the great challenge came from the Arab Caliphate. Since the 630s, waves of Arab armies had surged across Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa, stripping away some of Rome’s richest provinces. By the 670s, the Caliphate had even placed Constantinople itself under siege, their fleets pressing against the Bosporus. Only Greek fire—Byzantium’s terrifying secret weapon—had turned back the onslaught, burning ships and men in the waters off the city’s sea walls. The empire survived, but at a price: frontier provinces were militarized into themes, or military districts, ruled by strategoi whose loyalty could shift like the wind.
To the north, on the Danube frontier, Slavic tribes and Bulgar horsemen tested imperial limits. Rome’s old Balkan heartlands were now a patchwork of loosely controlled lands and semi-independent peoples. Within the empire’s borders, religious disputes simmered: Monophysites, Chalcedonians, Monothelites, and other theological factions clashed in councils and in the streets, their disagreements about the nature of Christ taking on the heat of civil war. The emperor was not only a worldly ruler but God’s chosen representative on earth, and every controversial doctrine could become a political powder keg.
Internally, the capital was a boiling pot. Constantinople, the “Queen of Cities,” pulsed with artisans, sailors, scribes, monks, and soldiers. The Hippodrome factions—the Blues and the Greens, those infamous chariot racing teams—had transformed from sports loyalties into political movements. Imperial legitimacy depended on ritual and spectacle: processions, acclamations, coronations under shimmering mosaics. Yet behind the gold tesserae and purple silks were fragile balances of power. Emperors could fall overnight, toppled not only by foreign enemies but by their own guards or bureaucrats.
Into this precarious, brilliant, dangerous world came Justinian II, a child of the palace and the last male scion of the Heraclian dynasty that had ruled Byzantium since the early seventh century. The stage on which he would play his bloody drama was already set: an empire on the edge, a city accustomed to coups, and a political culture in which the line between ruler and corpse could be as thin as a blade.
The Young Justinian II: Heir to a Glorious Name
Justinian II was born around 668 or 669, at a time when the empire’s fortunes seemed to wobble between survival and collapse. His father, Constantine IV, had won lasting fame by repelling the first great Arab siege of Constantinople. The boy grew up in a palace that resounded with stories of desperate battles on the sea walls, of flaming Arab ships, of divine deliverance. More important, he grew up under the long shadow of his imperial name: Justinian.
The first Justinian had been more than a ruler; he was a symbol of imperial ambition at its zenith. Law codification, imperial building, missionary activity, and reconquest—this had been his legacy, etched into stone and memory alike. For the child Justinian II, named after that towering figure, the message was clear: greatness was not optional. It was expected.
Raised in the ritualized environment of Constantinople’s Great Palace, he was surrounded by eunuchs, tutors, priests, and hardened officials. He learned Greek and possibly some Latin, absorbed the intricacies of court ceremony, and watched as his father presided over theological debates and military councils. According to later chroniclers, Justinian showed from a young age a fiery temperament, a tendency to wrath, and a ruthless streak that worried some of his mentors.
Yet, there was also promise. He was intelligent, energetic, and imbued with a sense of divine mission. When Constantine IV died in 685, the teenage Justinian II ascended the throne, cloaked in the purple of his ancestors, greeted by the chants of the people in the Hippodrome. The empire, still reeling from decades of war, looked to him with a mixture of hope and anxiety. Would this young “Justinian the Younger” restore what had been lost? Or would the weight of his name crush him?
First Reign, First Ruin: From Promise to Tyranny
At first, the new emperor seemed determined to justify the legacy of his name. In his early years, Justinian II pursued an energetic and sometimes visionary policy. He concluded a favorable treaty with the Umayyad Caliphate that temporarily stabilized the eastern frontier and brought in much-needed tribute. He reorganized the imperial finances, seeking to refill a treasury strained by war. He commissioned church building and appeared as a pious protector of orthodoxy, presenting himself as God’s chosen ruler in a dangerous age.
But ambition can sour into brutality when mixed with insecurity. Justinian’s initial successes emboldened him. When the treaty with the Arabs broke down, he launched new campaigns, eager to prove himself on the battlefield. Some went well, others disastrously. Losses in the Balkans and Anatolia undermined the aura of invincibility he craved. In response, he turned inward, increasingly suspicious of generals, senators, and even clergy.
The emperor began to squeeze more from his subjects. Taxes hardened, requisitions multiplied, and the rural populace groaned under levies of grain, men, and coin. Those who resisted could expect the full force of imperial wrath. One of the most infamous episodes of his first reign was the deportation of large numbers of Slavs and other populations from the Balkans to Asia Minor, resettled under harsh conditions to bolster frontier defenses. Many perished; resentment grew.
Even within the gilded halls of the capital, Justinian’s temper was legend. He punished officials with mutilation, exile, and death for what others might have considered minor faults. Allies were rewarded lavishly, but their position could vanish overnight with the emperor’s mood. Over time, a climate of fear settled over the bureaucracy. According to Theophanes the Confessor, one of our principal sources, Justinian “trusted no one and was feared by all,” a dangerous combination in a court built on shifting loyalties.
His religious policies too began to provoke opposition. Though he defended Chalcedonian orthodoxy, his interventions in church affairs, appointments, and doctrinal enforcement left many clergy uneasy. The emperor’s insistence on his own theological insight, combined with his temper, made dissent perilous. Where earlier emperors had, at least on occasion, compromised, Justinian often chose confrontation.
The result was a broadening coalition of quiet enemies: overtaxed provincials, suspicious generals, resentful palace officials, and wary churchmen. The machinery of imperial propaganda still presented him as a victorious, God-anointed ruler, but under the surface, the soil of rebellion was being prepared. His first reign, born in hope, was drifting toward catastrophe.
The Day the Nose Fell: Mutilation, Humiliation, Survival
In 695, the breaking point arrived. A rebellion coalesced around a military commander named Leontios, a man of experience and auctoritas who had once served Justinian but now saw an opening. As disturbances spread in the capital and the army’s loyalty wavered, Justinian discovered to his horror that the fear he had so carefully cultivated could turn against him. When soldiers and populace joined in revolt, the palace guards did not die to protect him. They opened the gates.
Leontios seized power in a swift, brutal coup. The Hippodrome, scene of so many imperial pageants, now became the theater of Justinian’s undoing. Dragged before the roaring crowds, once-gilded emperor now trembling captive, Justinian confronted the traditional Byzantine punishment for a deposed ruler. Killing an emperor outright risked accusations of sacrilege and martyrdom; instead, the empire preferred a kind of living death.
They cut off his nose.
In Byzantine political thought, physical wholeness mattered. An emperor was the image of divine authority. Mutilation—especially of the face—rendered him defective, symbolically unfit to rule. By slitting his nostrils and removing his nose, Leontios and his allies believed they erased Justinian’s right to the throne without staining themselves with regicide. The bleeding, half-fainting ex-emperor was then sent into exile, first to a monastery and then farther afield, to the distant outpost of Cherson in the Crimea.
Imagine the psychological violence of that moment: the roar of the mob that had once cheered him, the sharp stink of blood, the cold knowledge that the empire he had ruled now branded him a monstrosity. For many men, this would have been the end. But in the twisted logic of Byzantine politics, the very measure designed to disqualify Justinian from power left him alive—and so, however faintly, dangerous.
And Justinian, as events would prove, was not a man inclined to accept his fate.
From Cherson to the Khazars: An Emperor among Exiles
Cherson was a world away from the marbled corridors of Constantinople. Perched on the windswept Crimean peninsula, it was more trading post than imperial capital—an outpost of Greek-speaking civilization amid steppe peoples and distant khanates. For exiled dignitaries, it was both punishment and limbo: far from the intrigues of the court, yet close enough to tempt dreams of return.
It was here that Justinian began to reconstruct himself, both literally and symbolically. Later accounts speak of him wearing a golden prosthetic nose, carefully fashioned to hide the mutilation. Whether gleaming metal or delicately worked leather, this artificial feature became a second face: a mask that turned shame into a visible badge of survival. The noseless emperor, once a figure of ridicule, would become a walking reminder that mutilation did not necessarily end ambition.
In Cherson, Justinian cultivated the sympathy of local elites, exiles, and traders. He watched the tides of information: news from the capital, rumors of dissatisfaction with Leontios, later with Tiberios III, who soon overthrew Leontios in a dizzying cycle of coups. The empire, it seemed, was no more stable without him than with him. This knowledge fermented into a burning belief: he had been wronged, and time itself might yet vindicate him.
But his presence alarmed Constantinople. The authorities, aware that exiled emperors could serve as magnets for disgruntled factions, eventually moved to eliminate him. Warnings reached Justinian that agents were coming, quietly, to ensure that this noseless ghost never again walked the corridors of power. Once more, he had to flee.
His path led him eastward, across the Black Sea and into the orbit of the Khazars, a powerful steppe people who controlled crucial trade routes between Byzantium, the Islamic world, and the north. Their khagan ruled from the city of Phanagoria and then from Itil, astride the lower Volga. It was an alien, semi-nomadic world to a man raised among domes and mosaics, but it held the one thing Justinian desperately needed: a potential ally strong enough to help him back to Constantinople.
A Bride from the Steppe and a Plot in the Dark
The Khazar khagan, like many steppe rulers, was a shrewd calculator of advantage. An exiled Byzantine emperor in his court was both asset and liability. He could be a bargaining chip with Constantinople, but he might also entangle the khagan in Byzantine quarrels. To nail down an alliance—or at least a durable relationship—Justinian proposed a marriage.
The khagan agreed. Justinian took as his wife the khagan’s sister or close female relative, baptized into Christianity and renamed Theodora. Their union was more than a personal bond; it was a political gesture, fusing the fortunes of a disgraced Byzantine ruler with the prestige of the Khazar elite. For a time, it seemed Justinian had found a new base of support. He adopted elements of steppe dress, learned to navigate the cultural codes of the Khazar court, and bided his time.
Yet trust remained fragile. Constantinople, now under Emperor Tiberios III, sent envoys with veiled threats and promises, urging the khagan to rid himself of this dangerous guest. According to later chroniclers, the khagan agreed in secret. Assassins were prepared; Justinian’s fate was to be sealed quietly in a foreign land, his story ending in a forgotten riverbank or a shuttered tent.
What saved him was Theodora. Warned of the plot—perhaps by a sympathetic official, perhaps through women’s networks within the camp—she chose her exiled husband over her brother. Under cover of night, she allegedly told Justinian of the danger and urged him to flee. It is a cinematic scene to imagine: the emperor, scarred and sleepless, pulling on travel-stained boots as his Khazar bride, now a Christian empress in all but name, presses him to escape.
We do not know the exact words she used, but we know the outcome. Justinian slipped away under darkness, evading the assassins that his brother-in-law had sent. Theodora, heavily pregnant in some versions of the story, remained behind with the promise that she would rejoin him when the tides of power shifted. Once again, Justinian was on the run—this time, not simply as an exiled noble, but as a man marked twice for death and twice spared.
Across the Steppe and Sea: Justinian’s Daring Escape
From the Khazar lands, Justinian’s path bent westward, across the wide, threatening expanse of the steppe. He needed a new ally, someone less entangled with Constantinople and more hungry for opportunity. His eyes turned toward the Bulgars, a rising power in the Balkans led by the formidable Khan Tervel.
The journey itself was an act of desperation and courage. Skirting hostile tribes, evading imperial agents, Justinian crossed territories where the Byzantines were more legend than presence. He carried little but his lineage, his rage, and the memory of a city that had maimed and expelled him. The noseless emperor rode through dust and grasslands, sharing campfires with mercenaries, traders, and perhaps wandering monks, telling his story to anyone who might someday bring it farther west.
When he finally reached Tervel’s domain, he was a strange sight: a Byzantine royal cloaked in borrowed furs, bearing a golden nose, offering friendship and future rewards. Tervel, no fool, weighed the chances. Here was a man who, if restored, could grant lands, titles, gold, and Christian prestige. Here too was a risk: aiding him might draw the empire’s wrath if he failed.
Justinian made his case. He painted Constantinople as ripe for the taking, its rulers illegitimate usurpers, its people ready to accept their rightful sovereign if they saw him alive and at their gates. He promised Tervel not only wealth but the rarest of honors: recognition as a Caesar, a title that would elevate the Bulgar khan above other barbarian rulers in the eyes of the Roman world. It was an audacious offer, one usually reserved for imperial heirs.
Tervel agreed. A pact was struck, sealed perhaps with handclasps, oaths by their respective gods, and the shared understanding that together they might change the map of power. For Justinian, this alliance was the crucial hinge of destiny: without Bulgar horses and Bulgar swords, the justinian ii second reign would have been nothing more than an exiled man’s fever dream.
Bulgars at the Gates: The Pact with Khan Tervel
In 705, their combined forces moved south. The Bulgar cavalry, famed for speed and ferocity, rode alongside a motley array of Justinian’s supporters, adventurers, and perhaps some lingering loyalists from earlier days. The Danube was crossed, the Balkan mountains negotiated, and the great city’s silhouette loomed again on the horizon.
For the inhabitants of Constantinople, the sight of Bulgar standards fluttering near the land walls was terrifying. Memories of past barbarian raids stirred. Yet behind those banners was something stranger still: the claim that among the invaders rode Justinian, the mutilated emperor they had once cast out. Word traveled swiftly through markets and monasteries, in hushed tones along the docks, that the dead had returned to life.
Negotiations were attempted. Tiberios III, now occupying the throne, faced a dilemma. To refuse all talks risked a siege and possible internal uprisings. To bargain with Justinian was to acknowledge that the noseless exile still had a claim. According to some sources, he tried to buy off Tervel, offering gold and titles to turn him against his companion. But the Bulgar khan had already weighed his prospects and found them better with Justinian.
The standoff dragged on. Supplies in the Bulgar camp had to be managed, and morale within the city watched carefully. Inside the Walls, some undoubtedly argued for a preemptive strike, others for a quiet assassination. Yet the army’s loyalty was no longer a sure asset. The memory of Leontios and Tiberios, each having toppled the last, hung heavily over the emperor’s calculations.
At last, words failed. The drama would be decided not in council chambers but against stone and mortar, under the darkness of a moonless night.
The Night Assault on Constantinople and the Return of the Purple
It is one of the most cinematic episodes in Byzantine history. Under the cover of night, Justinian and a small band of picked men approached a section of the Theodosian Walls near the Golden Gate. They did not come with battering rams or siege towers. Instead, they came with knowledge and boldness. Some accounts suggest that they exploited a neglected postern gate, others that they scaled a less-guarded stretch of the wall. Whatever the method, the result was astonishing: a handful of men, led by a disfigured exile, slipped into the greatest fortified city of the age.
Once inside, they moved quickly. Guards were overpowered, gates seized, and in the confusion of darkness and alarm bells, word spread like wildfire: “Justinian is in the city!” Panic and hope mingled in the streets as soldiers, officials, and commoners tried to decide which way the wind was blowing. Many had little love for Tiberios III, whose own legitimacy was shaky. Justinian, whatever his past brutality, at least carried the authority of royal blood and the aura of miraculous survival.
By dawn, the balance tipped. Portions of the army renounced Tiberios and declared for Justinian. The exiled emperor, who had once been paraded bleeding in the Hippodrome, now strode back through the city’s heart in armor and imperial cloak. Tiberios fled but was soon captured; in time, he and Leontios would both face the same kind of theatrical punishment Justinian himself had endured—or worse.
When Justinian II entered the Great Palace once more, the air must have trembled with more than incense. He was not the same man who had left ten years earlier. The golden prosthetic nose, the lines of exile carved into his face, the memory of humiliation and threat—it all came with him into those familiar halls. The courtiers who knelt now did so with a new kind of fear. They had helped, or at least tolerated, his fall. What kind of mercy could they expect from his return?
So began the justinian ii second reign: not with peaceful acclamation in the Hippodrome, but with a night raid, foreign troops, and a restored emperor who believed, with a fanatic’s conviction, that God and history had vindicated him. It’s astonishing, isn’t it? The very city that tried to erase him had become the stage for his greatest triumph—and, as events would soon show, for his final downfall.
justinian ii second reign: A Broken Man on a Restored Throne
The justinian ii second reign officially began in 705, but it was more than a chronological label. It was a psychological rupture, a second life lived under the shadow of the first. The emperor who once returned in triumph after youthful victories now returned as a man who had seen the inside of exile, felt the blade on his face, and fled assassins across the steppe. That kind of experience does not foster magnanimity.
In theory, Justinian might have treated his restoration as an act of divine mercy and adopted a more conciliatory rule. In practice, he interpreted his return as proof that God had chosen him beyond all rivals, that his enemies were not merely political opponents but rebels against divine order. The temple of his mind had no room now for compromise.
He rewarded Khan Tervel lavishly. According to sources such as the Chronicle of Theophanes, Justinian granted him the title of Caesar—an unprecedented honor for a Bulgar ruler—and bestowed gold, robes, and land in Thrace. Tervel rode home as the first foreign ruler to be acclaimed in such quasi-imperial fashion, a living reminder to the empire’s subjects that Justinian had returned with outside help and could call upon it again if opposed.
Inside the empire, the new-old emperor wasted no time in reshaping the court. Loyalists who had stood by him, or who now rushed to profess repentance, were installed in key posts. Others were purged. Files were metaphorically opened; lists of those who had supported Leontios and Tiberios, or who had not spoken in Justinian’s defense during his downfall, were quietly compiled. It was a dangerous time to have a past.
In many ways, the justinian ii second reign was a distorted mirror of the first: the same energy and sense of imperial mission, but funneled now through a prism of paranoia and vengeance. He still spoke of strengthening the empire, fortifying its frontiers, and upholding orthodoxy, but these goals were now pursued with a brutality sharpened by memory. A ruler who has once walked helpless through a jeering crowd tends never to forget the sound.
Rage, Vengeance, and Blood: Purges in the Queen of Cities
The purges began almost immediately. Leontios and Tiberios III, the two men who had worn the purple during Justinian’s absence, were captured, humiliated, and brought before the people. In a grim parody of justice, they were marched through the city and, according to several accounts, publicly executed—some sources say beheaded, others that they suffered mutilations before their deaths. Whatever the precise details, their fate sent a clear message: the time of leniency had ended.
But Justinian’s vengeance did not stop at former emperors. The network of commanders, senators, and bureaucrats who had aided their rule—or merely failed to obstruct it—found themselves at the mercy of an emperor who kept score with obsessive care. Executions, blinding, tongue-cutting, and other mutilations multiplied. Some were packed off to remote monasteries or fortresses, spiritual and physical prisons all at once.
One chilling anecdote, preserved in later chronicles, describes Justinian ordering the execution of leading citizens of Cherson who had shown insufficient loyalty during his exile. Even in distant Crimean streets, the echo of his wrath could be heard. He had not forgotten the place that had harbored him indifferently and, he believed, betrayed him to his enemies.
The atmosphere in Constantinople grew heavy with dread. Palace conspiracies, always a feature of Byzantine life, now took on a more desperate tone. Men and women acted as if walking over thin ice, never sure which word might be repeated to the emperor in a deadly light. Some tried to demonstrate their loyalty with extravagant public displays—donations to churches in Justinian’s name, sermons praising his restoration, gifts to his household. Others quietly made preparations for flight or revolt.
For the common people, the purges were both distant and immediate. They saw bodies in the streets, heard stories whispered in taverns, and felt the invisible pressure of suspicion. Yet life went on: ships unloaded grain in the harbors, artisans hammered in their workshops, monks chanted in their cloisters. The empire was a great machine; even under a terrified silence, its gears kept turning.
And as the emperor’s vengeance widened, a paradox emerged. The justinian ii second reign, meant to stabilize and vindicate his rule, was undermining the very foundations of trust and cooperation that any emperor needed. Fear can ensure obedience for a time, but it rarely breeds loyalty.
Governance under the Shadow of Fear: Church, Army, and Bureaucracy
Beyond the bloodletting, Justinian still had an empire to govern. The church remained a vital pillar of his authority, and he tried to enlist it as a partner and instrument. He styled himself a zealous defender of orthodoxy, convened synods, and involved himself in episcopal appointments. Some bishops welcomed his piety and patronage; others, recalling his first reign, saw in his interventions an overbearing temperament prone to sudden turns.
According to one account, Justinian dispatched envoys—and threats—to church leaders who resisted his preferences, vowing to break the power of any prelate who defied imperial will. His devotion to Christian order was real, but it was inflected by the same authoritarian streak that marked his political actions. Theology and power flowed together, each feeding the other.
The army, which had played kingmaker in recent decades, was another crucial arena. Justinian sought to reshuffle command posts, promoting those who had aided his restoration and sidelining or punishing others. The thematic generals in Anatolia and the Balkans were watched closely. Gifts and promises were lavished on some; others found inspectors scrutinizing their books and allegiances. The emperor wanted an army that was both strong and personally loyal—a difficult combination in an environment where regional commanders held de facto autonomy.
The bureaucracy, those ranks of scribes, notaries, and financial officials who kept the imperial machine running, experienced both continuity and disruption. Some key positions remained stable; after all, expertise could not be fabricated overnight. Yet the fear of falling under suspicion led many officials to adopt an increasingly rigid interpretation of imperial orders, squeezing taxpayers, enforcing decrees harshly, and avoiding any action that might be construed as independent judgment.
In this climate, innovation—with a few exceptions—withered. Justinian’s genuine talents for reorganization and strategic planning were blunted by his inability to distinguish critics from traitors. The justinian ii second reign, compared to his first, featured fewer constructive reforms and more reactive measures. The emperor was now constantly scanning for betrayal, his gaze turned inward, even as external threats continued to press on all frontiers.
Wider Horizons: Arabs, Bulgars, and the Contest for Survival
While Justinian struggled to master his own court, the larger chessboard of the Mediterranean did not pause. To the east, the Umayyad Caliphate remained the empire’s most formidable rival. During his second reign, Justinian attempted once more to manage this relationship with a mixture of war and diplomacy.
Skirmishes flared along the Anatolian frontier, where Arab raiding parties tested Byzantine defenses and Byzantine generals launched counterstrikes. Tribute arrangements and short-term truces alternated with outbreaks of fighting. Justinian’s ability to focus on this vital front, however, was hampered by his obsession with enemies closer to home. Still, he understood that a major Arab offensive, if mishandled, could spell doom for his fragile regime.
The alliance with the Bulgars, meanwhile, had to be maintained—or at least carefully managed. Tervel had gained much from supporting Justinian: not only wealth and prestige, but also a meaningful foothold in imperial diplomacy. Yet allies can quickly turn into rivals when their expectations are not met. Justinian, increasingly preoccupied, did not always handle this relationship with the delicacy it required. Disputes over frontier territories in Thrace, over promised subsidies and titles, simmered beneath the surface.
In the west, Italy remained a fractured battleground between Byzantines, Lombards, and local powers. The exarchs—imperial governors in Ravenna and other centers—operated with limited resources, often improvising to keep imperial influence alive. Justinian paid attention, but the days when an emperor could dream of full restoration of the old Roman West were gone. Survival now trumped glory.
The empire’s naval dominance, battered but not broken, allowed it to preserve key sea routes and maintain contact with distant provinces. Fleets based in Constantinople and other ports patrolled the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Yet ships cost money, and money was increasingly scarce in a state contending with internal purges, external raids, and the lingering economic wounds of earlier decades.
Thus, the justinian ii second reign unfolded in a world where Byzantium was still a great power, but one under siege—from without and from within. The empire’s ability to project strength abroad was constantly undermined by the emperor’s inability to live at peace with his own subjects.
The Empire at Home: Cities, Peasants, and the Price of Imperial Obsession
While chronicles focus on coups and coronations, the true weight of an emperor’s character is often borne by people whose names never enter the record. Under Justinian’s second rule, the empire’s ordinary inhabitants felt the reverberations of palace terror in their daily lives: in tax assessments, conscription orders, and the invisible moods of distant officials.
In the countryside of Anatolia and the Balkans, peasant-soldiers of the themes shouldered much of the burden. They tilled land allotted in exchange for military obligation, knowing that a summons could come at any moment. Under an anxious emperor, these obligations often tightened. Frontier raids by Arab forces or by Slavic and Bulgar bands meant fresh calls for service, new fortifications to construct, additional supplies to procure. Villages emptied of able-bodied men; fields lay untilled or half-worked.
In the cities, artisans and merchants navigated a more fragile economic landscape. Imperial demands for coin to pay troops and allies like Tervel translated into higher taxes and stricter enforcement. Customs duties on trade, tolls on bridges and roads, and levies on guilds all grew heavier. Those in grain markets watched prices carefully, praying that new campaigns would not cut off vital shipments from Egypt or the Black Sea.
Monasteries, both in the capital and the provinces, continued to be centers of prayer, scholarship, and social aid. Some monks saw in Justinian’s suffering and restoration a kind of dark providence; others recoiled from the cruelty that followed his return. There are hints, scattered in later hagiographies, of holy men who warned that the emperor’s wrath imperiled not only his soul but the empire’s future.
Within households, stories of mutilated officials and exiled nobles filtered down to children. They grew up in a world where the emperor was not a distant, benevolent figure but a presence of awe and fear: a man rumored to have returned from the dead, face of gold and scars, temper of fire. The justinian ii second reign imprinted itself subtly into the culture, shaping how people spoke of justice, power, and the fragility of fortune.
Yet behind the dread, life asserted itself. Weddings were celebrated, liturgies chanted, crops harvested. The Byzantine Empire endured its rulers, as great societies often do, adapting quietly even as imperial edicts thundered from above.
A Family on the Edge: The Empress Theodora and the Boy Tiberius
Amid the turbulence of Justinian’s second reign stood a small family whose fate was bound up with his own: the Khazar-born empress Theodora and their son, Tiberius. Their existence gave the emperor something besides vengeance to think about, and they offered the empire a possible hope of stable succession after so many coups.
Theodora, who had once risked everything to warn Justinian of Khazar plots, finally joined him in Constantinople, crowned and installed as Augusta. Her foreign origins and conversion story added a layer of exotic drama to the court’s rituals. To many, she symbolized the strange roads by which God’s providence worked: a princess of the steppe, now empress of the Romans. Yet she also had to navigate a suspicious aristocracy that distrusted outsiders and a husband whose mood could darken in an instant.
Their son, Tiberius, was the embodiment of dynastic hope. Crowned co-emperor while still a child, he appeared in ceremonies alongside his father, a tiny figure in imperial robes, his presence reassuring those who craved continuity. Justinian, perhaps haunted by his own rough ascent, may have cherished this chance to secure the Heraclian line beyond his own lifetime.
Yet the court was no nursery. The boy grew up hearing whispers of betrayal and watching his father’s anger burn through ministers and generals. The women’s quarters, where Theodora and other imperial women lived, buzzed with rumors: of new purges, of frontier setbacks, of possible plots. To protect her son, Theodora cultivated allies among eunuchs, clergy, and some of the more moderate officials, weaving a delicate web of support that might shelter Tiberius if Justinian fell.
But in Byzantium, the distance between heir and victim could shrink terrifyingly fast. Any threat to Justinian’s rule could, and often did, spill over onto his family. Theodora must have known that if another coup came, her son’s title of co-emperor might not save him. It might instead paint a target on his small chest.
Thus, even as the justinian ii second reign offered a vision of dynastic continuity, it carried within it the seeds of hereditary tragedy.
Allies Turned Executioners: The Fall of Justinian’s Second Empire
Power built on fear and foreign swords rarely endures. As Justinian’s second reign wore on, resentment among the army and nobility deepened. Provinces bruised by taxation, commanders sidelined or humiliated, and courtiers terrified of the emperor’s next outburst all began to look for alternatives. The aura of miraculous restoration that had shrouded Justinian in 705 had, by the early 710s, thinned into an almost palpable sense of impending crisis.
The spark came from a familiar direction: the themes of Anatolia, where armies loyal to their generals had toppled emperors before. A commander named Philippikos Bardanes emerged as a focal point of discontent. Charismatic, skilled, and connected to influential circles, he was proclaimed emperor by troops who had simply had enough. Once again, the empire’s habit of elevating military men as corrective forces reasserted itself.
As Philippikos marched toward Constantinople, Justinian confronted a nightmare made familiar by his own past. He had seized power through a foreign-backed assault on the city; now another would-be ruler approached with support from the heartland armies. The walls that had once betrayed him might do so again. Inside the capital, factions calculated, weighing the risks of standing by the embattled emperor versus opening the gates to the new contender.
Many chose the latter. Weariness and fear of Justinian’s vengeance tipped the scales. The very system he had created—one in which terror and suspicion supplanted trust—now yielded its final, catastrophic harvest. When forces loyal to Philippikos entered the city, there was no heroic last stand from Justinian. Instead, there was the confused, desperate flight of a man who had run out of allies.
Captured by those who once bowed before him, Justinian faced the brutal logic of Byzantine politics once more. This time there would be no mere mutilation, no exile to distant shores. The empire had learned from its own history that half-measures could breed revenants. To end the cycle, Justinian himself would have to die.
The Death of Justinian II and the End of the Heraclian Dynasty
Around 711, the circle finally closed. Justinian II, last male of the Heraclian line descending from Emperor Heraclius, was executed. Some accounts say he was beheaded; others add grim details—his last moments spent cursing his enemies, invoking divine judgment, or clinging desperately to the last vestiges of dignity. However it unfolded, his death severed a century-old dynastic thread that had guided the empire through some of its harshest trials.
His young son, Tiberius, the co-emperor who had once charmed crowds in miniature purple robes, did not escape. In the ruthless calculus of palace politics, a child could not be allowed to grow into a rallying point for future rebels. Tiberius was murdered, likely strangled or beheaded, his small body discarded as if it were merely another obstacle removed from the path of the new regime.
With their deaths, the Heraclian dynasty ended in a spasm of violence and fear. The empire shifted into a new era of instability, marked by rapid turnovers of rulers, doctrinal controversies, and fresh external threats. Philippikos Bardanes, despite his initial support, would himself soon fall, proving once more that in Byzantium, the purple was a perilous garment to wear.
Yet for all the bloodshed, a strange kind of closure came with Justinian’s end. The experiment of the justinian ii second reign—an emperor restored by foreign arms, ruling through terror sharpened by trauma—had run its course. The lesson, though paid for in lives and tears, was indelible: mutilation may not disqualify a man from power, but it can disfigure the soul that wields it.
Memory, Legend, and the Afterlife of a Mutilated Emperor
History did not forget Justinian II, though it did not remember him kindly. Chroniclers such as Theophanes the Confessor and later writers painted him as a tyrant whose cruelty overshadowed his talents. They relished the irony of a nose-cut emperor returning to the throne, only to be felled once more. In their moralizing narratives, his story became a cautionary tale about pride, vengeance, and the perils of trusting too much in divine favor.
Yet even these critical voices preserved glimpses of complexity. They acknowledged his intelligence, his energy, his genuine, if misdirected, piety. Some admitted that his early policies had shown promise, that his determination in exile was remarkable. A modern historian, Warren Treadgold, for example, has noted that Justinian “might have become one of Byzantium’s greatest emperors had he been less vindictive and more circumspect” (a paraphrased assessment representative of contemporary scholarship). The very extremity of his fate fascinated later generations, who saw in him a tragic figure rather than a simple villain.
In art and popular imagination, the image of the noseless emperor lingered. Stories circulated of his golden prosthesis, of the way children recoiled or stared when he passed in procession, of the unsettling juxtaposition of lavish imperial dress and mutilated flesh. He became, symbolically, an embodiment of the empire itself: battered, resilient, sometimes monstrous, striving always to project an image of wholeness despite the wounds beneath.
Even the alliance with the Bulgars and the elevation of Tervel to Caesar found echoes in later memory. For Slavic and Bulgar traditions, the episode became a proud moment, proof that their rulers had once been courted and honored by the emperors of Constantinople. For Byzantines, it was a reminder that in desperate times, emperors might subject the sacred borders of the Roman world to perilous compromise.
Over centuries, as new dynasties rose and fell, as iconoclasts and iconophiles fought over images, as Crusaders and Ottomans cast their eyes on the city, Justinian II’s story remained a dark gemstone in the treasury of imperial lore. His life and the justinian ii second reign in particular posed enduring questions: Can a ruler truly return from political death? Does suffering make a man more compassionate or more cruel? And how much violence can an empire absorb before its very idea begins to fracture?
Conclusion
Justinian II’s second reign stands as one of the most haunting chapters in Byzantine history. In it we see an emperor who lived twice on the throne—first as a young, ambitious ruler, then as a disfigured revenant driven by fury. The arc of his life traces the perilous edge on which Byzantium itself balanced: between glory and ruin, between faith in divine protection and the hard realities of power.
His restoration in 705, accomplished through an audacious alliance with Khan Tervel and a daring night entry into Constantinople, could have been the prelude to renewal. Instead, it opened a period in which personal trauma and political paranoia fused into a regime of fear. The justinian ii second reign was marked by purges, semifrenzied suspicion, and a fixation on vengeance that sapped the energy needed for more constructive governance.
Yet within this darkness there were also glimpses of the emperor Justinian might have been: a strategist capable of forging unexpected alliances, a ruler with a sharp sense of imperial destiny, a man who refused to accept the “finality” of exile in a world that believed mutilation ended royal claims. His story, as later historians such as John Haldon and Judith Herrin have suggested in their broader studies of the period, illuminates the structural tensions of the empire as much as the failings of one individual.
The consequences of his second reign were profound. The Heraclian dynasty ended in blood; the habit of military revolt deepened; and the precedent of foreign-backed restorations lingered in the imperial imagination. Ordinary subjects paid the price in taxes, conscription, and the slow erosion of trust in the institutions that claimed to protect them.
And yet, the empire survived. It bent without breaking, absorbing Justinian’s tempest as it would many others. In that endurance lies perhaps the most Byzantine of paradoxes: that a state could produce rulers as broken and brilliant as Justinian II and still stagger forward into new centuries. His life, and especially his second, shadowed reign, remains a stark reminder that in autocratic systems, the scars of one man can become the fate of millions.
FAQs
- Who was Justinian II?
Justinian II was a Byzantine emperor who ruled twice, first from 685 to 695 and then from 705 to 711. He was the last male ruler of the Heraclian dynasty and is infamous for his brutal methods, his mutilation and exile after his first fall from power, and his dramatic restoration a decade later. - What is meant by the “justinian ii second reign”?
The phrase refers to Justinian II’s second period on the throne, from 705 to 711, after he returned from exile with the help of the Bulgar khan Tervel. This justinian ii second reign was characterized by revenge-driven purges, harsh internal policies, and a heightened sense of paranoia rooted in his earlier humiliation. - How did Justinian II lose his nose?
After being overthrown in 695 by the general Leontios, Justinian II was subjected to the traditional Byzantine punishment for a deposed emperor: mutilation. His nose was cut off to symbolize his unfitness to rule, and he was then exiled. The act was meant to permanently disqualify him from the throne, though it ultimately failed. - How did Justinian II manage to regain the throne?
Following his exile to Cherson and a subsequent escape from an assassination attempt in the Khazar realm, Justinian II forged an alliance with Khan Tervel of the Bulgars. In 705, he led Bulgar forces to Constantinople, infiltrated the city by night, and triggered a military and political shift that toppled Emperor Tiberios III and restored him to power. - Why is Justinian II often portrayed negatively by historians?
Most surviving sources, such as the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, depict Justinian II as cruel, vengeful, and unstable—especially during his second reign. His extensive purges, harsh taxation, and reliance on fear damaged his reputation. Modern historians, while more nuanced, generally agree that his brutality undermined his considerable talents and weakened the empire. - What role did foreign powers like the Bulgars and Khazars play in his life?
The Khazars provided Justinian II with temporary refuge and a political marriage, though their ruler eventually plotted against him. The Bulgars, under Khan Tervel, were decisive in his restoration: their military support allowed him to retake Constantinople in 705. These interactions highlight how deeply Byzantine politics were entangled with neighboring powers. - What happened to Justinian II’s family?
His Khazar-born wife, Theodora, was crowned empress and lived with him in Constantinople, while their son Tiberius was made co-emperor as a child. After Justinian’s fall in 711, Tiberius was killed to prevent any future dynastic claims. Theodora’s ultimate fate is uncertain, but she likely fell from power or perished anonymously amid the regime change. - How did Justinian II’s second reign affect the Byzantine Empire in the long term?
His second reign deepened patterns of internal instability, normalizing violent purges and reinforcing the habit of military revolts as a means of changing rulers. The violent end of the Heraclian dynasty and the reliance on foreign allies like the Bulgars influenced both political culture and diplomatic strategies in subsequent decades. - Is there any evidence that Justinian II was a capable ruler despite his reputation?
Yes. His early diplomatic moves with the Umayyad Caliphate, his attempts at fiscal and administrative reform, and his ability to build alliances with powerful neighbors demonstrate real political skill. However, his vindictiveness, especially during the justinian ii second reign, overwhelmed these capabilities and made sustained success impossible. - Where can I read more about Justinian II and this period of Byzantine history?
You can consult modern academic works on the early medieval Byzantine Empire, such as those by Warren Treadgold, John Haldon, and Judith Herrin. For a concise overview, the article on Justinian II in the online Encyclopaedia Britannica or on Wikipedia provides a useful starting point, followed by more specialized monographs and journal articles.
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