of an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of
Justinian. The conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers
hidden under their garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius
was dragged from the sanctuary. [66] Pressed by remorse, or tempted
by the hopes of safety, he 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. [67] Posterity
will not hastily believe that a hero who, in the vigor 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. Belisarius
appeared before the council with less fear than indignation: after forty
years' service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was
sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The life of
Belisarius 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 honor
were restored; and death, which might be hastened by resentment and
grief, removed him from the world in about eight months after his
deliverance. The name of Belisarius can never die but instead of the
funeral, the monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I
only read, that his treasures, the spoil of the Goths and Vandals,
were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was
reserved, however for the use of his widow: and as Antonina had much
to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and fortune to the
foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and genuine narrative of the
fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude of Justinian. [68] That he was
deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg his bread, [6811] "Give
a penny to Belisarius the general!" is a fiction of later times, [69]
which has obtained credit, or rather favor, as a strange example of the
vicissitudes of fortune. [70]

[Footnote 65: They could scarcely be real Indians; and the Aethiopians,
sometimes known by that name, were never used by the ancients as guards
or followers: they were the trifling, though costly objects of female
and royal luxury, (Terent. Eunuch. act. i. scene ii Sueton. in Augus