general of the emperor Justinian's army, who overthrew the Persians in the East, the Vandals in Africa, the Goths in Italy, and, in a degenerate age, renewed the victories and triumphs which had immortalized the glorious times of the republic. But notwithstanding all his exploits, this great commander was falsely accused of a conspiracy against the emperor's life. The real conspirators had been detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their garments; and one of them died by his own hand, while the other was dragged from the sanctuary, to which he had fled for refuge. Pressed by remorse, or tempted by the hopes of safety, the latter accused two officers of the household of Belisarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had acted according to the secret instructions of their patron. But posterity will not hastily believe that a 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 expect long 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. Belisarius appeared before the council with less of fear than of indignation; after forty years' service, the emperor prejudged his case; and injustice was sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The life of the venerable veteran was indeed spared; but his fortunes were sequestrated, and for upwards of six months he was kept a close prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was acknowledged, and his freedom and honours were restored; but death, which might have been hastened by grief and resentment, removed him from the world about eight months after his deliverance. That he was deprived of his sight, and reduced to beg charity in the streets, uttering the doleful solicitation of *Date obolum Belisario*, "give a penny to Belisarius," is a fiction of later times, which has obtained credit as a supposed instance of extreme vicissitude of fortune. This idle fable seems to have been derived from a work of the twelfth century, entitled the Chilias, by John Tzetzes, a monk, who relates the blindness and beggary of Belisarius in ten doggerel verses (*Chiliad* iii. No. SS, 339–348, in *Corp. Poet. Graec.* tom. ii. p. 311), which are unworthy of quotation. The tale seems to have been imported into Italy with the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end of the fifteenth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus; attacked by Alciatus for the honour of the law, and defended by Baronius for the honour of the church. Yet Tzetzes, the father of the fabrication, had confessedly read in the chronicles, that Belisarius did not lose his sight, and that he recovered his fortune and his fame.