Justinian II's tyranny drove people to the banner of revolt raised by this Armenian officer, Vardan Bardanes. From his exile in Cherson, the active and forceful Bardanes drove home his advantage, until the capital came out for him. The murder of Justinian II and his child heir removed the last of the Heracliads and Bardanes was raised to the purple.

Once the Imperial robes were assumed, Bardanes swiftly shed all traces of the dynamism and charisma that had raised him to his exalted present. Seemingly hell-bent on resting on his laurels, Bardanes devoted his time to banqueting and heavy drinking. As though this was not enough to alienate his subjects' affections, his rare spells of sobriety were spent in the dissemination of a deeply unpopular, and theologically heretical, form of monophysitism.

The Pope in Rome refused to receive the official portrait, on account of the emperor's religious views, dealing a major blow to the Imperial influence in the west. (Coins from the mint of Rome are, however, known.) Justinian's old ally, the Bulgar khan Tervel, used the usurpation as an excuse to invade Imperial territory, and the emperor's drunken revellry put him at a moral disadvantage against the abstinent armies of Islam.