Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Tiberius III/archive1

Tiberius III was Byzantine emperor from 698 to 705. He was a mid-level commander who served in the Cibyrrhaeot Theme. In 696, he was part of an army sent by Emperor Leontius to retake Carthage from the Umayyads. After seizing the city, the army was pushed back by Arab reinforcements and retreated to Crete. Some officers, fearing Leontius, killed their commander and declared Tiberius emperor. Tiberius gathered a fleet, sailed for Constantinople, and deposed Leontius. He did not attempt to retake Byzantine Africa from the Umayyads, but campaigned against them along the eastern border. In 705 former emperor Justinian II, who had been deposed by Leontius, led an army of Slavs and Bulgars from the First Bulgarian Empire to Constantinople, and deposed Tiberius. Tiberius fled to Bithynia, but was captured a few months later and beheaded between August 705 and February 706. His body was initially thrown into the sea, but was later recovered and buried in a church on the island of Prote.