page_title: Constantine IV
section_title: Later reign
hierarchical_section_title: Constantine IV / Later reign
caption_attribution_description: English: Constantine IV Pogonatus, with Heraclius and Tiberius. 668-685. AV Solidus (18mm, 4.41 g, 6h). Constantinople mint, 4th officina. Struck 668-673. Helmeted and cuirassed bust facing slightly right, holding spear and shield / Cross potent set on three steps; at sides, Heraclius and Tiberius standing facing, each holding globus cruciger; Δ//CONOB. DOC 6d; MIB 5c; SB 1153. Near EF.
context_page_description: Constantine IV, called the Younger and sometimes incorrectly Pogonatos out of confusion with his father, was Byzantine Emperor from 668 to 685. His reign saw the first serious check to nearly 50 years of uninterrupted Islamic expansion, while his calling of the Sixth Ecumenical Council saw the end of the monothelitism controversy in the Byzantine Empire.
context_section_description: With the temporary passing of the Arab threat, Constantine turned his attention to the Church, which was 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 he 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 conflicts with the Arabs during the 670s, Constantine had been forced to conclude treaties in the west with the Lombards, who had captured Brindisi and Taranto.  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. 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 panicked and was defeated by the Bulgars. In 681, Constantine was forced to acknowledge the Bulgar state in Moesia and to pay tribute/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.
caption: A solidus showing Constantine and his brothers, minted before 681 when the latter were mutilated.
exif: {}