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tantly confess that the fame, and even the virtue, of Belisarius were polluted by the lust and cruelty of his wife; and that the hero deserved an appellation which may not drop from the pen of the decent historian. The mother of Antonina[1] was a theatrical prostitute, and both her father and grandfather exercised at Thessalonica and Constantinople the vile, though lucrative, profession of charioteers. In the various situations of their fortune, she became the companion, the enemy, the servant, and the favourite of the empress Theodora: these loose and ambitious females had been connected by similar pleasures; they were separated by the jealousy of vice, and at length reconciled by the partnership of guilt. Before her marriage with Belisarius, Antonina had one husband and many lovers; Photius, the son of her former nuptials, was of an age to distinguish himself at the siege of Naples; and it was not till the autumn of her age and beauty[2] that she indulged a scandalous attachment to a Her lover Theodosius Thracian youth. Theodosius had been educated in the Eunomian heresy; the African voyage was consecrated by the baptism and auspicious name of the first soldier who embarked; and the proselyte was adopted into the family of his spiritual parents,[3] Belisarius and Antonina. Before they touched the shores of Africa, this holy kindred degenerated into sensual love; and, as Antonina soon overleaped the bounds of modesty and caution, the Roman general was alone ignorant of his own dishonour. During their residence at Carthage, he surprised the two lovers in a subterraneous chamber, solitary, warm, and almost naked. Anger flashed from his eyes, "With the help of this young man," said the unblushing Antonina, "I was secreting our most precious effects from the knowledge of Justinian." The youth resumed his garments, and the pious husband consented to disbelieve the evidence of his own senses. From this pleasing and perhaps voluntary delusion Belisarius was awakened at Syracuse, by the officious information of Macedonia; and that
- ↑ The diligence of Alemannus could add but little to the four first and most curious chapters of the Anecdotes. Of these strange Anecdotes, a part may be true, because probable — and a part true, because improbable. Procopius must have known the former, and the latter he could scarcely invent.
- ↑ Procopius insinuates (Anecdot. c. 4) that, when Belisarius returned to Italy (A.D. 543), Antonina was sixty years of age. A forced but more polite construction, which refers that date to the moment when he was writing (A.D. 559), would be compatible with the manhood of Photius (Gothic. l. i. c. 10) in 536.
- ↑ Compare the Vandalic war (l. i. c. 12) with the Anecdotes (c. 1) and Alemannus (p. 2, 3). This mode of baptismal adoption was revived by Leo the philosopher.
