Called “the slit-nosed”—ὁ Ῥινότμητος, ho Rhīnótmētos—though likely not to his face, Justinian II, last Byzantine emperor of the Heraclian dynasty, a period of transition that saw the cultural shift from Roman antiquity to medieval and Turkic and who first reigned from 785 to 695, exiled because of unpopular tax policies, deposed, his nose cut off and exiled to Cherson in Crimea and returned to the throne in 705 with the help of his supporters and Khazar authorities eager to be rid of this liability to the theme (θέμα, an administrative district of the Empire) who helped him to get back to Constantinople on a fishing boat, with the backing of Bulgarian dissidents and enthroned, fronting a nasal prothesis made of solid gold, on this day in 706, having tracked down his predecessors (the one before his first term and the one from his interregum) and political rivals, had them brought in chains to the hippodrome on this day in 706, trod on their necks and ordered them to be execution by beheading, along with multitudes of their partisans as well as blinding banishing the patriarch.
His second reign marked by unsuccessful military adventures against the Khanate of Bulgaria and the Caliphate—with the former playing a pivotal role in his return to power and now Byzantium turning against his allies, whom had also provided Justinian with a bride, renamed Theodora after the wife of his namesake, and cruel suppression of his opposition, imposing the pope in Rome’s authority over the rump state of Ravenna and indirectly causing the Great Schism with puppet papacy. An uprising in Cherson itself saw Justinian taken capture and executed on the fourth of November of the year 711) five insufferable years later), his disembodied head being put on public display in Ravenna as well as in Rome. Upon hearing of his death, heir apparent Tiberius and regnant mother sought sanctuary in a church but were dragged from the altar and killed, thus ensuring the end of the family line.