emperor, to invade Syria, and he had his fleet concentrate on Rhodes with orders not only to resist the approach of the enemy but to destroy their naval stores. Re-conquering land lost to the Caliphate would have both offered the practical advantages of expanding the empire's borders as well as acting as a display of the new regimes strength. Deposition At Rhodes, Opsician troops, resenting Anastasius’ actions taken after his ascension, mutinied, and killed the admiral, John. They then elected to have an Emperor ready before they overthrew Anastasius and proclaimed as emperor Theodosius III (Theodosios), a tax-collector of little renown. After a six-month siege, Constantinople was taken by Theodosius; Anastasius, who had fled to Nicaea, was eventually compelled to submit to the new emperor and retired to a monastery in Thessalonica. Theophanes the Confessor states that Anastasius reigned for 1 year and 3 months, which would place his deposition in September 715. However, another possible date is November 715. Rebellion Theodosius was later deposed by Leo III who had previously served under Anastasius. Leo would rule over two crises in quick succession. First was a siege at Constantinople by the Umayyad Caliphate. Which created confusion at whether Constantinople had been conquered or not. Troops in Sicily declared for a new Emperor, believing the capitol to be conquered. While they were quelled, by the time the siege had lifted on August 15th, 718, both a siege and a rebellion made it appear as though Leo’s new government was weak. After seeing this, Anastasius chose to rebel to reclaim the Byzantine throne. In 719. Anastasius left Thessalonica to head a revolt against Leo III. Though who incited the rebellion is contested as Patriarch Nikephoros says Anastasius engineered the plot himself. While Theophanes the Confessor claims Niketas Xylinites initiated the plot by writing to Anastasius. Regardless, Anastasius petitioned Tervel of Bulgaria for support and received many troops alongside financial support of 50,000 litres of gold. However, the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, who offers this information elsewhere, confuses Tervel with his eventual successor Kormesiy, so perhaps Anastasios was allied with the younger ruler. Another explanation holds that Kormesiy represented Tervel during the Bulgarians' negotiation with Anastasius. Despite the success of the coups during the Twenty Years Anarchy, rebellion had a high chance of failure. So Anastasius must have had a reason he believed the risk to be worth it. One explanation is that