Later Reign
With the temporary passing of the Arab threat, Constantine had to turn his attention to the Church, torn between Monothelitism and Orthodoxy. In November 680 Constantine convened the Sixth Ecumenical Council (also known as the Third Council of Constantinople). Constantine presided in person during the formal aspects of the proceedings (the first eleven sittings and then the eighteenth), surrounded by his court officials, but took no active role in the theological discussions. The Council reaffirmed the Orthodox doctrines of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This solved the controversy over monothelitism; conveniently for the Empire, most monothelites were now under the control of the Umayyad Caliphate. The council closed in September 681.
Due to the ongoing concerns with the Arabs during the 670s, in the west, Constantine had been forced to conclude treaties with the Lombards, who had captured Brindisi and Taranto. As well, in 670 the Bulgars under Asparukh crossed the Danube into nominally Imperial territory and began to subject the local communities and Slavic tribes. In 680, Constantine IV led a combined land and sea operation against the invaders and besieged their fortified camp in Dobruja. Suffering from bad health, the Emperor had to leave the army, which allowed itself to panic and be defeated by the Bulgars. In 681, Constantine was forced to acknowledge the Bulgar state in Moesia and to pay protection money to avoid further inroads into Byzantine Thrace. Consequently, Constantine created the Theme of Thrace.
His brothers Heraclius and Tiberius had been crowned with him as Augusti during the reign of their father, and this was confirmed by the demand of the populace, but in 681 Constantine had them mutilated so they would be ineligible to rule. At the same time he associated on the throne his own young son Justinian II. Constantine died of dysentery in September 685.
Read more about this topic: Constantine IV
Famous quotes containing the word reign:
“In order to prove a friend to one’s guests, frugality must reign in one’s meals; and, according to an ancient saying, one must eat to live, not live to eat.”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)
“Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature’s monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.”
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)