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| 692 |
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| The Byzantine forces were severely defeated by the Arabs in the Battle of Sevastopol in the Crimea. | 1 |
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| 695 |
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| A revolt against the emperor, led by Leontius and supported by the clergy and people, initiated a period of 20 years of anarchy. Justinian was deposed and exiled to the Crimea (Cherson). | 2 |
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| 695–98 |
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| Leontius, emperor. His reign was marked by the domination of the army. | 3 |
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| 697–98 |
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| The Arabs finally took Carthage, ending Byzantine rule in North Africa. | 4 |
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| 698–705 |
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| Tiberius II, made emperor by another revolt in the army. The reign was distinguished by an insurrection against Byzantine rule in Armenia and by constant Arab raids in eastern Anatolia. | 5 |
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| 705–11 |
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| Justinian II, who returned to the throne with the aid of the Bulgarian king. He took an insane revenge on all his enemies and instituted a reign of terror. | 6 |
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| 711 |
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| The emperor failed to suppress a serious revolt in the Crimea supported by the Khazars. The insurgent troops, under Philippicus, marched on Constantinople and finally defeated and killed Justinian in the engagement in northern Anatolia. | 7 |
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| 715–17 |
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| Theodosius III, an obscure official put on the throne by the army. He was helpless in the face of the Arabs, who in 716 advanced as far as Pergamon. The invaders were finally repulsed by the strategos of the Anatolian theme, Leo, who forced the abdication of the emperor and was enthusiastically proclaimed by the clergy and populace of the capital. | 8 |
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| 717–41 |
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| LEO III (the Isaurican), founder of the Isaurican dynasty, an eminent general and a great organizer. Leo used drastic measures to suppress revolts in the army and reestablished discipline by issuing new regulations. The finances were restored by heavy, systematic taxation. An agrarian code confirmed the village communities as collective owners of land, collectively responsible to the state. In the Ecloga (739) the empire was given a simplified law code, distinguished by the Christian charity of its provisions. Leo completed the theme organization, dividing the original units and making seven themes in Asia and four in Europe. | 9 |
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| 717–18 |
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| Second great siege of Constantinople by the Arabs. The siege lasted just a year and ended in failure, due to the energetic conduct of the defense and to the assistance of the Bulgars. | 10 |
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| 726 |
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| Beginning of the great iconoclastic controversy. Leo found the empire generally demoralized and prey to superstition and miracle-mongering. Like many devout persons (especially in the Anatolian regions), he disapproved of the widespread image worshiping, which he proceeded to forbid. Behind these measures there undoubtedly lay the desire to check the alarming spread of monasticism, which withdrew thousands of men from active economic life and concentrated great wealth in the cloisters, which were free from taxation. The first measures led at once to a revolt in Greece (727), whence a fleet set out for Constantinople with an “anti-emperor.” This was destroyed by the Greek fire of the imperial fleet. The pope at Rome (Gregory II) likewise declared against the emperor's iconoclasm, and the population of the exarchate of Ravenna rose in revolt and made an alliance with the Lombards. With the aid of Venice, a few crucial stations were held by the imperial forces. A fleet from the east failed to restore Byzantine authority (731). In revenge the emperor in 733 withdrew Calabria, Sicily, and Illyria from the jurisdiction of the pope and placed them under the Constantinople patriarch. | 11 |
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| 739 |
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| The Byzantine forces won an important victory over the Muslim invaders of Anatolia in the battle of Akroinon. | 12 |
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