[8] Byzantine historians Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon suggested Bardanes had some connection or affiliation with the Armenian Mamikonian family,[9] which Kaldellis also denies.

[citation needed] Relying on the support of the Monothelite party, he made some pretensions to the throne on the outbreak of the first great rebellion against Emperor Justinian II.

Justinian was subsequently seized and beheaded; his son Tiberius was likewise apprehended by Philippicus's officers, Ioannes and Mauros, and killed in a church.

Among the first acts of Philippicus were the deposition of Cyrus (the orthodox patriarch of Constantinople) in favour of John VI (a member of his own sect), and the summoning of a conciliabulum of Eastern bishops, which abolished the canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

When Philippicus transferred an army from the Opsikion theme to police the Balkans, the Umayyad Caliphate under Al-Walid I made inroads across the weakened defenses of Asia Minor.