Pope Constantine passed by Naples and Sicily, and wintered at Otranto. Here he received an imperial order, requiring the magistrates to treat him wherever he went with the same honour as the emperor himself. When he reached Constantinople, the young son of the emperor, the highest nobility, the patriarch Cyrus, with the clergy, and a great multitude, came out seven miles to meet him. The Pope, wearing the dress which he wore at Rome in great ceremonies, entered the city with his train, riding the imperial horses richly caparisoned. They were taken in triumph first to the royal palace, and then to the Pope’s own abode at the Placidia palace. Justinian, being at Nicæa, sent him a letter full of thanks, and begged the Pope to meet him at Nicomedia. When they met, the emperor, wearing his crown, threw himself at the Pope’s feet, and kissed them. They then embraced to the great joy of the people. It appears that the Deacon Gregory,(152) the next successor of Pope Constantine, was attending on him, and that he answered with great ability certain questions put by the emperor. They are supposed to have referred to the Trullan canons. They were not confirmed. The later practice(153) of the Roman Church, with regard to these canons, continued to be to suffer those only to hold, which were not contrary to the decrees of the Popes and the western discipline. On the Sunday, the Pope celebrated Mass before the emperor, who received Communion from him; besought him to pray that his sins might be forgiven, renewed all the privileges of the Roman Church, and left the Pope free, to return home. That return was delayed by the frequent sicknesses of the Pope. At length, however, he reached Gaeta in safety, where a great number of clergy and of the Roman people met him, and he entered Rome in joy in October, 711. But the Pope had left behind him, and counselled in vain, an emperor bent on his own destruction. Justinian had conceived a furious hatred against the town of Cherson. He had sent a large fleet against it. Its chief men were taken away and cruelly tortured. The fleet itself was afterwards utterly wrecked by a tempest: upon which Justinian prepared another, under fresh commanders, who were instructed to inflict fresh cruelties. In the end the people of Cherson was driven into revolt. They proclaimed emperor Bardanes, one of the commanders of the fleet. Another officer, a chamberlain of Justinian, whom he had frightfully injured, and who expected to be killed by him, joined in the revolt. He was sent by Bardanes to seize Justinian, persuaded the soldiers to desert him, fell upon him, and, with his sword, cut off his head, which he sent at once to Bardanes, who forthwith despatched it by the same soldier to Rome. And thus the extinction of the race of Heraclius was signified to the West by the exposure of his head. His only son, Tiberius, a boy of ten, had already been slaughtered like a sheep.(154)