Everything about Anastasios Ii Emperor totally explained
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
Philippicus, they acclaimed Artemius as emperor. He chose
Anastasius as his regnal name. Soon after his accession, Anastasius II imposed discipline on the army and executed those officers who had been directly involved in the conspiracy against Philippicus.
Anastasios upheld the decisions of the
Sixth Ecumenical Council and deposed the Monothelete
Patriarch John VI of Constantinople, replacing him with the Orthodox
Patriarch Germanus 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 Anastasius 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 Theodosius. 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.
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