The French historian Le Beau, in his “_Histoire du bas Empire_,” says: “The fall of Belisarius gave rise to a ridiculous story which has been for 600 years repeated by poets and prose writers, but which all well-informed authors have agreed in refuting.” The real fact, drawn from the best sources, and recorded by Gibbon, is this: About two years after the last victory of Belisarius over the Bulgarians, the Emperor Justinian returned in bad health from a journey to Thracia. There being a rumour of his death, a conspiracy was formed in the palace, but the conspirators were detected, and on being seized were found to have daggers hidden under their garments. Two officers of the household of Belisarius were accused, and torture induced them to declare that they had acted under the secret instructions of their chief. Belisarius appeared before the council, indignant and undaunted. Nevertheless, his fidelity, which had remained unshaken for forty years, availed him nothing. The emperor condemned him without evidence; his life was spared, but his fortune was sequestrated, and from December 563 to July 564 he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was acknowledged, and his freedom and honours were restored; but death, which might possibly have been hastened by grief and resentment, removed him from the world within a year of his liberation. About 600 years after this event, John Tzetzes, poet and grammarian, born in Constantinople, attempted in ten bad Greek verses to draw a picture of Belisarius deprived of sight and penniless. The tale was imported into Italy with the manuscripts of Greece, and before the close of the 15th century it was taken up by more than one learned writer and universally believed. The credulity of the multitude is such, that they still persist in ignoring the refutation of Samuel Schelling (_Dissertatio historica de Belisario_, Witteb. 1665, in 4ᵗᵒ), of Th. Fr. Zeller (_Belisarius_, Tubing. 1809, in 8ᵛᵒ), of Roth (_Ueber Belisar’s Ungnade_, Bâle 1846, in 8ᵛᵒ) and many others. In a note to Gibbon’s _History_ edited by W. Smith LL.D., we see that two theories have been started in modern times to account for the fable of the beggary of Belisarius. The first is that of Le Beau, who supposes that the general was confounded with his contemporary John of Cappadocia. This prætorian prefect of the East, whose crimes deserved a thousand deaths, was ignominiously scourged like the vilest of malefactors, clothed in rags and transported in a bark (542) to the place of his banishment at _Antinopolis_ in Upper Egypt, and this ex-consul and patrician was doomed to beg his bread in the cities which had trembled at his name.