or, while he was feasting in
the palace of St Mamas. He ordered Peganes to be led out to meet the new
prisoner, that Symbat might be conducted into Constantinople with every
possible indignity. The blind and mutilated Peganes was compelled to
walk before his friend, with a bowl of earthenware in the form of a
censer, filled with sulphur, as if burning incense to perfume him. The
right eye of Symbat was put out, and his right hand cut off, and in this
state he was placed in the Lauron, like a beggar, with a bowl hung
before his breast to receive charity. Three days after, the two rebels
were allowed to return to their houses, where they were kept prisoners.
Symbat regained possession of his sequestered fortune when Basil the
Macedonian became emperor.

Now, even if we admit the possibility of the politic Justinian having
treated Belisarius as Michael the Drunkard treated the unprincipled
Symbat, still it is impossible to compare the words in which the
Guide-book and Tzetzes commemorate the misfortunes of the hero with the
narratives of the punishment of Peganes and Symbat, without feeling that
the former are transcribed from the latter.

To prove this, if necessary, we could quote the words of our
authorities. The earliest account of the punishment of Peganes and
Symbat is given by George the Monk, a Byzantine writer whose chronicle
ends with the year 920. The chronicle of Simeon Metaphrastes, which also
belongs to the tenth century, and that of Leo Grammaticus, give the same
account, almost in the same words. There can be no doubt that they are
all copied from official documents; the style is a rich specimen of the
monastic state-paper abridgment.[51]

The state-paper style was retained in the romance from which the
Guide-book was copied, to impress the feeling of reality on the minds of
the people; while the mention of the obolus, an ancient coin, marked
the antique dignity with which the tale was invested. The obolus had
been, for centuries, unknown in the coinage of Constantinople; and the
word was no longer in use in the public markets of Greece. But besides
this, if the Guide-book is to be admitted as an authority for a
historical fact, it very soon destroys the value of its own testimony
concerning the blindness and beggary of Belisarius; for, only a few
lines after recording his disgrace, it mentions a gilt statue of the
hero as standing near the palace of Chalce.

Such is fame. The real Belisarius, the hero