Constants II

Constant II came to power by eliminating his stepmother Martin and Uncle Heraclius II .

He led an active, but not very successful foreign policy. In 654, the fleet of Constant was defeated by the Arabs off the coast of Lycia , the emperor miraculously escaped captivity. The Arab fleet had a clear advantage over the Byzantines and was planning to sail to Constantinople, but because of the strife among the Arabs, the campaign did not take place, the caliph and the emperor made peace, which gave a little respite to Byzantium.

In 663, he tried to conquer Italy , robbed the Byzantines belonging to Rome, but suffered a heavy defeat, losing 20,000 people in a battle with the Lombard king . He was able to retain Sicily.

He moved his residence to Syracuse , where he brought the works of art captured in Rome. The trouble, the Hon. In the Church History of the People of the Angles , reported that in 668 Ebroin had detained St. Theodore , who was returning with his companions from Rome to Britain. The reason for this was the fears of the mayordom, who believed that Monofelite Constant II, who was in Syracuse, was creating an alliance with the Anglo-Saxons against the Orthodox Frankish state to send the Franks, Visigoths, Lombards to war with the Arabs and introduce the direct rule of the emperor in Western Europe, and the detainees were his people ^{[ 1]} .

Because of the constant fratricide committed by Constant, heavy taxes, adherence to monotheelism, he was unloved by the people. Failures in foreign policy finally destroyed his popularity.

Killed by conspirators, possibly bribed by francs, while bathing. According to Theophanes the Confessor , a certain Andrei, who served him while washing, hit the emperor with a gang on the head the moment he soaped his head. The stunned Constant fell into the water and choked.

• Constants II // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.