general of the emperor Justinian's army. Belifarius, army, who overthrew the Persians in the East, the Vandals in Africa, and the Goths in Italy. See Rome. But after all his great exploits, he was falsely accused of a conspiracy against the emperor. The real conspirators had been detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their garments. One of them died by his own hand, and the other was dragged from the sanctuary. Prefixed by remorse, or tempted by the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of Belifarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had acted according to the secret instructions of their patron. Posterity will not hastily believe, that an hero who in the vigour of life had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly; but flight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had lived enough for nature and for glory. Belifarius appeared before the council with less fear than indignation: after 40 years service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The life of Belifarius was graciously spared: but his fortunes were sequestered; and, from December to July, he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was acknowledged; his freedom and honours were restored; and death, which might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from the world about eight months after his deliverance. That he was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg his bread, "Give a penny to Belifarius the general!" is a fiction of later times; which has obtained credit, or rather favour, as a strange example of the vicissitudes of fortune.—The source of this idle fable may be derived from a miscellaneous work of the 12th century, the Chilias of John Tzetzes, a monk. He relates the blindness and beggary of Belifarius in ten vulgar or political verses (Chiliad iii. N° 88. 339—348. in Corp. Poet. Graec. tom. ii. p. 311).

This moral or romantic tale was imported into Italy with the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end of the 15th century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus; attacked by Alciati for the honour of the law, and defended by Baronius (A.D. 561. N° 2, &c.) for the honour of the church. Yet Tzetzes himself had read in other chronicles, that Belifarius did not lose his sight, and that he recovered his fame and fortunes.—The statue in the Villa Borghese at Rome, in a fitting posture, with an open hand, which is vulgarly given to Belifarius, may be ascribed with more dignity to Augustus in the act of propitiating Nemesis (Winckelmann, Hist. de l'Art, tom. iii. p. 266.). "Ex nocturno visu etiam fitipem, quotannis die certo, emendicabat a populo, cavam manum affes porrigentibus prebens" (Sueton. in Aug. c. 91.)