enabled to pass the
rest of his life in great if not in regal splendour.[34]

He enjoyed the glory of his earlier exploits, and the popularity secured
by his equable temperament, undisturbed for eleven years. In the year
559, an incursion of the Huns was pushed forward to the very walls of
Constantinople. The weakness of Justinian, the avarice of his ministers,
and the rapacity of his courtiers, had introduced such abuses in the
military establishments of the capital, that in this unexpected danger
the city appeared almost without a regular garrison. In this difficulty,
all ranks, from Justinian to the populace, turned to Belisarius as the
champion of the empire. The aged hero, finding the imperial guards
useless as a military corps, since it had been converted into a body of
pensioners, appointed by the favour of ministers and courtiers, and its
ranks filled up with shopkeepers and valets--assembled such of the
provincial troops and of his old guards as were living in the
capital.[35] With a small body of experienced veterans, and an army in
which fear at least ensured obedience to his orders, he took the field
against the Huns. Victory attended his standard. He not only drove back
the barbarians, but overtook and destroyed the greater part of their
army.

There was nothing of romance in this last campaign of Belisarius. He
could no longer lead his gallant guards to display his own, and their
valour, in some rash enterprise. His war-horse, Balan, was in its grave,
and his own strength no longer served him to act the colonel of
cuirassiers. But he was, perhaps, all the better general for the change;
and his manoeuvres effected a more complete destruction of the Huns,
than would have resulted from the defeat of their army by the bold
sallies of his youthful tactics.

The glory of the aged hero, and the proofs it afforded of his great
popularity and extensive authority over the military classes throughout
the empire, again revived the jealousy of the court. The ministers of
Justinian perhaps dreaded that the affection of the emperor for his
former favourite might recall Belisarius into public life, and effect a
change in the cabinet. To prevent this, they calumniated him to the
feeble prince, and worked so far on his timidity as to induce the
emperor to withhold those testimonials for great public services which,
it was customary to bestow. The fact that he was persecuted by the
court, endeared Belisarius to the people