Anastasios II (emperor)

Encyclopedia : A : AN : ANA : Anastasios II (emperor)

Anastasios II kept his name, Artemios, also on his coinage; this solidus bears the legend APTEMIUS ANASTASIUS.

Anastasios II or Anastasius II (Greek: Αναστάσιος Β΄), (died 718), Byzantine emperor, from 713 to 715.

Anastasios was originally named Artemios (Αρτέμιος), and had served as a bureaucrat and imperial secretary for his predecessors. After the Opsikian army in Thrace had overthrown Emperor Philippikos, they acclaimed Artemios as emperor. He chose Anastasios as his regnal name. Soon after his accession, Anastasios II imposed discipline on the army and executed those officers who had been directly involved in the conspiracy against Philippikos.

Anastasios upheld the decisions of the Sixth Ecumenical Council and deposed the Monothelete Patriarch John VI of Constantinople, replacing him with the Orthodox Patriarch Germanos in 715. This also put an end to the short-lasting schism with the Roman Church.

The empire was threatened by the Arabs both by land and sea (they penetrated as far as Galatia in 714), and Anastasios attempted to restore peace by diplomatic means. His emissaries having failed in Damascus, he undertook the restoration of Constantinople's walls and the construction of a new fleet. However, the death of the Caliph al-Walid I in 715 gave Anastasios an opportunity to turn the tables on the enemy. He had his fleet concentrate on Rhodes with orders not only to resist the approach of the enemy, but to destroy their naval stores, and dispatched an army under Leo the Isaurian, afterwards emperor, to invade Syria.

The troops of the Opsikian theme, resenting the emperor's strict measures, mutinied, slew the admiral John, and proclaimed Theodosios, a tax-collector of low extraction, emperor. After a six months' siege, Constantinople was taken by Theodosios; Anastasios, who had fled to Nicaea, was compelled to submit to the new emperor in 716 and retired to a monastery in Thessalonica.

In 718, Anastasios headed a revolt against Leo III, who had succeeded Theodosios. He received a considerable amount of support, including auxiliaries reportedly provided by Tervel of Bulgaria. However the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor who offers this information elsewhere confuses Tervel with his eventual successor Kormesiy, so perhaps Anastasios was allied with the younger ruler. In any case the rebel forces advanced on Constantinople. The enterprise failed, and Anastasios, falling into Leo's hands, was put to death by his orders.

External links