was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg his bread, "Give a penny to Belisarius the general!" is a fiction of later times,[1] which has obtained credit, or rather favour, as a strange example of the vicissitudes of fortune.[2]
Death and character of Justinian. A.D. 565, Nov. 14 If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he enjoyed the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period of a reign of thirty-eight and a life of eight-three years. It would be difficult to trace the character of a prince who is not the most conspicuous object of his own times; but the confessions of an enemy may be received as the safest evidence of his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust of Domitian is maliciously urged;[3] with the acknowledgment, however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion,- ↑ The source of this idle fable may be derived from a miscellaneous work of the xiith century, the Chiliads of John Tzetzes, a monk (Basil, 1546, ad calcem Lycophront, Colon. Allobrog. 1614 in Corp. Poet. Græc). [Tzetzes was not a monk.] He relates the blindness and beggary of Belisarius in ten vulgar or political verses (Chiliad iii. No. 88, 339-348, in Corp. Poet. Græc. tom. ii. p. 311).
Ἕκπωμα ξύλινον κρατω̂ν ὲβόα τῷ μιλίῳ
βελισαρίῳ ὀβολὸν δότε τῷ στρατηλάτῃ
Ον τύχη μὲν ἐδόξασεν, άποτυϕλοɩ̂ δ ὸ ϕθόνος.This moral or romantic tale was imported into Italy with the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end of the xvth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus; attacked by Alciat, for the honour of the law; and defended by Baronius (A.D. 561, No. 2, &c.) for the honour of the church. Yet Tzetzes himself had read in other chronicles that Belisarius did not lose his sight and that he recovered his fame and fortunes. [The myth appears earlier than Tzetzes in the Πάτρια τη̂ς πόλεως, which goes under the name of Codinus (ed. Bonn, p. 29) and was compiled in the time of Basil II. It was wrought into a political romance in the 14th or 15th century, and we possess it in three forms, of which the oldest is published by Wagner in his Mediæval Greek Texts (in unrhymed political verses); the second, by the Rhodian poet Georgillas (printed by A. Giles at Oxford, 1643), breaks into rhyme near the end (Georgillas represents the transition from rhymeless to rhymed verses); the third in rhyme (printed at Venice in 1548). See Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litteratur, ed. 2, p. 825-7. It should be noted that John of Cappadocia ended his days in beggary (Procopius, B. P. i. 23). But more important for the origin of the Belisarius legend (as Finlay pointed out) is the story of Symbatios, in the ninth century. Blinded of one eye, he was placed in front of the palace of Lausus, with a plate on his knees, as a beggar, and in this plight displayed to the public for three days. See George Mon., p. 834 (ed. Bonn); Finlay, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. App. 2, and vol. ii. p. 194.]
- ↑ The statue in the villa Borghese at Rome, in a sitting posture, with an open hand, which is vulgarly given to Belisarius, may be ascribed with more dignity to Augustus in the act of propitiating Nemesis (Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art, tom. iii. p. 266). Ex nocturno visu etiam stipem, quotannis, die certo, emendicabat a populo, cavam manum asses porrigentibus præbens (Sueton. in August. c. 91, with an excellent note of Casaubon). [The statue is now in the Louvre.]
- ↑ The rubor of Domitian is stigmatized, quaintly enough, by the pen of Tacitus (in Vit. Agricol. c. 45); and has been likewise noticed by the younger Pliny (Panegyr. c. 48), and Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 18, and Casaubon ad locum). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 8) foolishly believes that only one bust of Domitian had reached the vith century.
