Constantine IV (); 650 – 10 July 685), called the Younger ()[ September 3/September 16. Orthodox Calendar (PRAVOSLAVIE.RU).]
Early career
The eldest son of
Constans II and Fausta, daughter of patrician Valentinus,
Constantine IV had been named a co-emperor with his father in 654, almost certainly in
Easter (13 April).
[ PBW " Konstantinos IV".] His year of birth is unknown,
but often given as 650.
He became emperor in September 668, when news arrived at Constantinople that
Constans II had been assassinated in Sicily.
[
The first task before the new Emperor was the suppression of the military revolt in Sicily under Mezezius which had led to his father's death.]
As early as 668 the Caliph Muawiyah I received an invitation from Saborios, the commander of the troops in Armenia, to help overthrow the Emperor at Constantinople.
The First Arab Siege of Constantinople (667–669)
While modern historiography traditionally placed the first Arab siege of Constantinople in 674–678, a new reconstruction of the events has re-dated it to 667–669.
The army invaded the Byzantine territories by summer of 667 and through a number of raids and plundering arrived by the end of 667 at Chalcedon where it spent the winter. Meanwhile, the Arab navy consisting of Egyptian and Syrian fleet units under the command of Muʿāwiya son, Yazid I was also sailing towards Constantinople which it reached by autumn 667. Among the comrades of Yazīd where four Companions of the Prophet and members of the Medinan aristocracy, to wit ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās paternal cousin of the Prophet and ancestor of the Abbasid dynasty, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar the son of the second caliph and one of the most important transmitters of the hadith, ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr, son a sister of the Prophet's wife ʿAisha, grandson of Abu Bakr and future caliph during the civil war of 680-692, and Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī who hosted the Prophet during his stay in Medina according to the Arab historiographer Al-Tabari.
Rise of Constantine IV to power, Mezezios the usurper, and the monetary reform of 668
The first Arab siege of Constantinople set in motion a number of developments. In the aftermath of the siege the victorious, albeit during the circumstances mostly rather than his prowess, Constantine emerged as leader of the city. The news of the lifting of the siege had not yet reached Syracuse due to the naval blockade of Constantinople and the fear for the worst possible scenario led a party of the emperor's closest high-ranking military office holders to unfold a plot to remove him out of, supposedly, concern for the continuation of the empire. Be that as it may, the assassination of the emperor Constans II took place on the 15th of July of 668. Upon the emperor's death that faction of conspirators proclaimed Mizizios as emperor in Sicily.
In the wake of the Arab siege and his father's relocation to Suracuse where presumably the imperial treasury was also moved and possibly plundered after Constans II assassination, Constantine IV was faced with a surging economic crisis. The Arab raids of Asia Minor and the territorial losses in broader Syria meant also the loss of some important mines and shortage of precious metals for the higher value coinage. Other from devaluating the higher order issues the new emperor opted for reissuing the copper follis of Justinian which meant, the iconographic return aside, four times heavier coin. This increase in the metal's substance increased the monetary value of his copper follis and probably made redundant the solidi of Mezezios in order to strike his opponent by destabilising his currency's value. However, Constantine IV by the next year when his son's was born decided to undo his father's ecclesiastical policy and not only named his son Justinian II, but he furthered the restructuring of the rest of the monetary system to Justinian's issues in terms design and layout. The fostering of such a propaganda where he was likened himself to Justinian aimed at glossing his reign with a profound renovatio imperii which he essentially did as the Byzantines from 672 to 680 had gained the offensive and through a series of counterattacks to Egypt and to Syria attained to paralyse the Arab danger. This put an end to 15 years of successive raids and devastation and Muʿāwiya's death on 6 May of 680 sealed that end for good.
Later reign
With the temporary passing of the Arab threat, Constantine turned his attention to the Church, which was torn between Monothelitism and Orthodoxy.[ Also in 680, the Bulgars under Khan Asparukh crossed the Danube into nominally Imperial territory and began to subjugate the local communities and Slavic tribes.][
His brothers Heraclius and Tiberius had been crowned with him as augusti during the reign of their father,]
Family
By his wife Anastasia, Constantine IV had at least two sons:
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Justinian II in 669, who succeeded him as emperor at the age of sixteen.
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Heraclius 670, known only from an episode in which his father sent locks of his and his brother's hair to Pope Benedict II.
In art and popular culture
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Constantine IV was portrayed by Iossif Surchadzhiev in the 1981 Bulgarian movie Aszparuh, directed by Ludmil Staikov.
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Constantine IV is the subject of the song "Imperator" ("Emperor"), released by the Bulgarian heavy metal band Epizod in their 2012 album Moyata molitva ("My prayer").
See also
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List of Byzantine emperors
Notes
Sources
Primary sources
Secondary sources
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()
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Jankowiak, M. (2013). "The First Arab Siege of Constantinople", Travaux et Mémoires 17, 237-322.
External links
