military force of 30,000 men. Emboldened by the increase of his forces in Anatolia, Justinian now renewed the war against the Arabs, winning a battle in Armenia in 693. The Arabs met the challenge by bribing the new army to revolt. Most of the Slavic troops defected during the subsequent Battle of Sebastopolis, where Justinian was comprehensively defeated and compelled to flee to the Propontis. There, according to Theophanes, he took out his frustration by slaughtering as many of the Slavs in and around Opsikion as he could lay his hands on. Meanwhile, a Patrician named Symbatius rebelled in Armenia and opened up the province to the Arabs, who proceeded to conquer it in 694–695. In domestic affairs, the Emperor's bloody persecution of the Manichaeans and suppression of popular traditions of non-Chalcedonian origin caused dissension within the Church. In 692 Justinian convened the so-called Quinisext Council at Constantinople to put his religious policies into effect. The Council expanded and clarified the rulings of the Fifth and Sixth ecumenical councils, but by highlighting differences between the Eastern and Western observances (such as the marriage of priests and the Catholic practice of fasting on Saturdays) it also compromised Byzantine relations with the Catholic Church. The emperor ordered Pope Sergius I arrested, but the militias of Rome and Ravenna rebelled and took the Pope's side. Justinian contributed to the development of the thematic organization of the Empire, creating a new theme of Hellas in southern Greece and numbering the heads of the four major themes of the Opsikion, Anatolikon, Thracesion and Armeniakon, and the naval Karabisianoi corps, among the senior administrators of the Empire. He also sought to protect the rights of peasant freeholders, who served as the main recruitment pool for the imperial armies, against attempts by the aristocracy to acquire their land. This put him in direct conflict with some of the largest landholders in the Empire. While his land policies threatened the aristocracy, his tax policy was very unpopular with the common people. Through his agents Stephen and Theodotos, the emperor raised the funds to gratify his sumptuous tastes and his mania for erecting costly buildings. This, ongoing religious discontent, conflicts with the aristocracy, and displeasure over his resettlement policy eventually drove his subjects into rebellion. In 695 the population rose under Leontius, the strategos of Hellas, and proclaimed him Emperor. Justinian was deposed and his nose was cut off