Turkey / Byzantium: Anastasius II (-719), Byzantine emperor, from the book Romanorvm imperatorvm effigies: elogijs ex diuersis scriptoribus per Thomam Treteru S. Mariae Transtyberim canonicum collectis, 1583

Anastasius II (-719), also known as Anastasios II and originally named Artemius, was a bureaucrat and imperial secretary in the Byzantine court. He was proclaimed emperor by the Opsician army after they had overthrown Emperor Philippicus. Changing his name to Anastasius, he took the throne and turned on those who had aided his rise by executing those directly involved in the conspiracy against Philippicus.

Anastasius deposed the Monothelete Patriarch John VI of Constantinople and replaced him with the Orthodox Patriarch Germanus in 715, putting an end to the local schism within the Catholic Church. He tried to negotiate peace with the Umayyad Caliphate, which at the time surrounded the Byzantine Empire by land and sea, but his diplomats failed and he was forced to restore Constantinople's walls and rebuild its navy instead.

Opsician troops, chafing under Anastasius' strict measures, mutinied and proclaimed Theodosius III as emperor. Constantinople eventually fell to Theodosius after a six-month siege. Anastasius was eventually forced to submit to the new emperor in 716 and was allowed to retire to a monastery in Thessalonica. However, he headed a revolt against Emperor Leo III in 719, but his efforts failed and he was executed by Leo.

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