For it was not only the people of Rome who rose to prevent this outrageous act. When Zacharias landed in Ravenna, the citadel of the empire in Italy, the "army of Ravenna," no longer perhaps Byzantine mercenaries, but Italians, mutinied and determined to march to Rome to defend the pope. As they marched down the Flaminian Way, the soldiers of the Pentapolis joined them, a Holy War, a revolution, declared itself, and for this end: "We will not suffer the Pontiff of the Apostolic See to be carried to Constantinople." This curious mob of soldiers, gathering force and recruits as it marched with songs and shouting down the Way, hurled itself against the walls of the Eternal City, battered down the gate of S. Peter which Zacharias, afraid and in tears, had ordered to be closed, and demanded to see the pope who was believed to have been spirited away in the night on board a Byzantine ship like his predecessor Martin. Zacharias took refuge under the pope's bed, and Sergius showed himself upon the balcony of the Lateran and was received with the wildest enthusiasm. In that revolution was destroyed all hope of the Byzantine empire in Italy. A new vision had suddenly appeared to those whom we may call, and rightly now, the Italian people. The long resurrection of the West, the greatest miracle of the papacy, was upon that day secured for the future. And henceforth the mere appearance of the exarch in Rome was regarded as an insult and a declaration of war. In the year 695 Justinian II. was deposed and mutilated by Leontius, but he was to appear again as emperor ten years later when Sergius was dead and John VII. sat on the throne of Peter. Pope John reigned but for three years, in which he was successfully bullied by Justinian. He was then succeeded by Sisinnius, who reigned for a few months, and then by Constantine who ruled for seven years (708-715). The archbishops of Ravenna had certainly not dared openly to side with the imperial party and the exarch during the revolution, but, with the restoration of Justinian, archbishop Felix (708-724) felt himself strong enough to oppose the pope when he categorically required of him an oath "to do nothing contrary to the unity of the Church and the safety of the empire." He had, however, chosen a bad time to set himself against his superior, who in the minds of all was the champion of Italy.