Justinian II Rhinotmetos
Justinian II was deposed, mutilated, exiled, and came back ten years later to kill everyone involved. Born in 668, he was the son of Constantine IV and became emperor at sixteen in 685, at the end of a century in which the empire had lost Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa. His early reign was competent enough. He exploited an Arab civil war to renegotiate tribute, campaigned in the Balkans, and resettled tens of thousands of Slavs in Asia Minor to repopulate it and to raise troops. The trouble was fiscal and social. He taxed heavily for an ambitious building programme and used two officials — a former monk named Theodotos and the logothete Stephen — whose collection methods produced open hatred, and he attacked the great landowners. He was overthrown in 695 by the general Leontios. His nose and tongue were slit rather than his throat, on the principle that a maimed man could not reign, and he was exiled to Cherson in the Crimea. The nickname Rhinotmetos, slit-nose, is what he is known by. He escaped, married the sister of the Khazar khagan, escaped again when the Khazars agreed to hand him over, and sailed to the Bulgars, whose khan Tervel gave him an army. He got into Constantinople through a disused water conduit in 705 and had Leontios and Tiberios beheaded in the Hippodrome after putting a foot on each of their necks. His second reign was a vendetta, and he sent a fleet to destroy Cherson. He was killed in 711.
- Lived: 669 CE – 711 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state, military_leader
