[9][10] As a result of Constantine IV's victories, the political situation in the Eastern provinces of the Empire was stable when Justinian ascended the throne.

[11] After a preliminary strike against the Arabs in Armenia,[12] Justinian managed to augment the sum paid by the Umayyad Caliphs as an annual tribute, and to regain control of part of Cyprus.

[13] Additional resettlement efforts, aimed at the Mardaites and inhabitants of Cyprus, allowed Justinian to reinforce naval forces depleted by earlier conflicts.

[7] In 688, Justinian signed a treaty with the Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan which rendered Cyprus neutral ground, with its tax revenue split.

With a great military campaign in 688–689, Justinian defeated the Slavs of Macedonia and was finally able to enter Thessalonica, the second most important Byzantine city in Europe.

[7] In domestic affairs, the Emperor's bloody persecution of the Manichaeans,[10] and his suppression of the popular traditions of those who were not of Chalcedonian origin, caused dissension within the Church.

[7] He also sought to protect the rights of peasant freeholders (who served as the main recruitment pool for the imperial armies) against attempts by the aristocracy to acquire their land.

[7] Through his agents Stephen and Theodotos, the emperor raised the funds to gratify his sumptuous tastes and his mania for erecting costly buildings.

[7][10] Justinian was deposed and his nose was cut off (later to be replaced by a solid gold replica of his original) to prevent his again seeking the throne: such mutilation was common in Byzantine culture.

[25] As the ship bearing Justinian sailed along the northern coast of the Black Sea, he and his crew became caught up in a storm somewhere between the mouths of the Dniester and the Dnieper Rivers.

[24] While it was raging, one of his companions reached out to Justinian saying that if he promised God that he would be magnanimous, and not seek revenge on his enemies when he was returned to the throne, they would all be spared.

There, before a jeering populace, Justinian, now wearing a golden nasal prosthesis,[27] placed his feet on the necks of Tiberius and Leontius in a symbolic gesture of subjugation before ordering their execution by beheading, followed by many of their partisans,[28] as well as deposing, blinding and exiling Patriarch Callinicus I to Rome.

[30] He ordered Pope John VII to recognize the decisions of the Quinisext Council and simultaneously fitted out a punitive expedition against Ravenna in 709 under the command of the Patrician Theodore.

[11] The rebels then seized the capital and proclaimed Bardanes as Emperor Philippicus;[35] Justinian had been on his way to Armenia, and was unable to return to Constantinople in time to defend it.

[36] Justinian's reign saw the continued slow and ongoing process of transformation of the Byzantine Empire, as the traditions inherited from the ancient Latin Roman state were gradually being eroded.

Although the office of the consulate continued to exist until Emperor Leo VI the Wise formally abolished it with Novel 94,[38] it was Justinian who effectively ended its status as a separate political entity.

Though at times undermined by his own despotic tendencies, Justinian was a talented and perceptive ruler who succeeded in improving the standing of the Byzantine Empire.

[27] A pious ruler, Justinian was the first emperor to include the image of Christ on coinage issued in his name[2] and attempted to outlaw various pagan festivals and practices that persisted in the Empire.

[7] Among the building projects he undertook was the creation of the triklinos, an extension to the imperial palace, a decorative cascade fountain located at the Augusteum, and a new Church of the Virgin at Petrion.