[678-711 A.D.]
In the same year in which Moawyah had been induced to purchase peace by consenting to pay tribute to the Roman emperor, the foundations of the Bulgarian monarchy were laid, and the emperor Constantine himself was compelled to become tributary to a small horde of Bulgarians. One of the usual emigrations which take place amongst barbarous nations had induced Asparuch, a Bulgarian chief, to seize the low country about the mouth of the Danube; his power and activity obliged the emperor Constantine to take the field against these Bulgarians in person. The expedition was so ill conducted that it ended in the complete defeat of the Roman army, and the Bulgarians subdued all the country between the Danube and Mount Hæmus, compelling a district inhabited by a body of Slavonians, called the seven tribes, to become their tributaries. These Slavonians had once been formidable to the empire, but their power had been broken by the emperor Constans. Asparuch established himself in the town of Varna, near the ancient Odessus, and laid the foundation of the Bulgarian monarchy, a kingdom long engaged in hostilities with the emperors of Constantinople, and whose power tended greatly to accelerate the decline of the Greeks and reduce the numbers of their race in Europe.
The event, however, which exercised the most favourable influence on the internal condition of the empire during the reign of Constantine Pogonatus, was the assembly of the sixth general council of the church at Constantinople. This council was held under circumstances peculiarly favourable to candid discussion. The ecclesiastical power was not yet too strong to set both reason and the civil authorities at defiance. Its decisions were adverse to the monothelites; and the orthodox doctrine of two natures and two wills in Christ was received by the common consent of the Greek and Latin parties as the true rule of faith of the Christian church. Religious discussion had now taken a strong hold on public opinion, and as the majority of the Greek population had never adopted the opinions of the monothelites, the decisions of the sixth general council contributed powerfully to promote the union of the Greeks with the imperial administration.
JUSTINIAN II (685 A.D.)
Justinian II succeeded his father Constantine at the age of sixteen, and though so very young, he immediately assumed the personal direction of the government. He was by no means destitute of talents, but his cruel and presumptuous character rendered him incapable of learning to perform the duties of his situation with justice. He turned his arms against the Saracens though the caliph Abdul-Malik offered to make additional concessions in order to induce the emperor to renew the treaty of peace which had been concluded with his father. Justinian sent a powerful army into Armenia under Leontius. All the provinces which had shown any disposition to favour the Saracens were laid waste, and the army carried off an immense booty, and drove away a great part of the inhabitants as slaves. The caliph being engaged in a struggle for the Caliphate with powerful rivals, and disturbed by rebels even in his own Syrian dominions, arrested the progress of the Roman arms by purchasing peace on terms far more favourable to the empire than those of the treaty between Constantine and Moawyah.
Justinian, at the commencement of his reign, made a successful expedition into the country occupied by the Slavonians in Macedonia, who were now closely allied with the Bulgarian principality beyond Mount Hæmus. This people, emboldened by their increased force, had pushed their plundering excursions as far as the Propontis. The imperial army was completely successful, and both the Slavonians and their Bulgarian allies were defeated. In order to repeople the fertile shores of the Hellespont about Abydos, Justinian transplanted a number of the Slavonian families into the province of Opsicum. This colony was so numerous and powerful that it furnished a considerable contingent to the imperial armies.
[689-692 A.D.]
The peace with the Saracens was not of long duration. Justinian refused to receive the first gold pieces coined by Abdul-Malik, which bore the legend, “God is the Lord.” The tribute had previously been paid in money from the municipal mints of Syria; and Justinian imagined that the new Arabian coinage was an attack on the Holy Trinity. He led his army in person against the Saracens, and a battle took place near Sebastopolis, on the coast of Cilicia, in which he was entirely defeated, in consequence of the treason of the leader of his Slavonian troops. Justinian fled from the field of battle, and on his way to the capital he revenged himself on the Slavonians who had remained faithful to his standard for the desertion of their countrymen. The Slavonians in his service were put to death, and he even ordered the wives and children of those who had joined the Saracens to be murdered. The deserters were established by the Saracens on the coast of Syria, and in the island of Cyprus; and under the government of the caliph they were more prosperous than under that of the Roman emperor.
