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458 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliii by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from the sanctuary. 105 Pressed by remorse or tempted by the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of Belisarius ; and torture forced them to declare that they had acted according to the secret in- structions of their patron. 100 Posterity will not hastily believe that an hero, who, in the vigour of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly ; but flight must have been sup- ported by rebellion, and he had lived enough for nature and for a.d. 563, glory. Belisarius appeared before the council with less fear than Dec ' 5 indignation ; after forty years' service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The life of Belisarius was graciously spared ; but his fortunes were sequestered, and from December to July he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At a.d. 564. length his innocence was acknowledged ; his freedom and honours July 19 ° were restored ; and death, which might be hastened by resent- ment and grief, removed him from the world about eight months a.d. 565, after his deliverance. The name of Belisarius can never die; but, instead of the funeral, the monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I only read that his treasures, the spoils of the Goths and Vandals, were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was reserved, however, for the use of his widow; and, as Antonina had much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and fortune to the foundation of a convent. 107 Such is the simple and genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude of Justinian. 10S That he los The [? leg. thie] Sergius (Vandal. 1. ii. c. 21, 22 ; Anecdot. c. 5) and Marcellus (Goth. 1. iii. c. 32) are mentioned by Procopius. See Theophanes, p. 197, 201 [a.m. 6051, 6055]. 106 Alemannus (p. 3) quotes an old Byzantine Ms. which has been printed in the Imperium Orientale of Banduri. 107 [For this statement as to the last days of Antonina, the source is a brief notice in the anonymous ndrpia KuvaravTivo^hews, ed. Preger, p. 254 (Banduri, Imp. Or. i. p. 37), where it is said that she restored the church of S. Procopius, which Gibbon appears to have confused with the convent of Procopia, founded by the wife of Michael I.] 108 Of the disgraoe and restoration of Belisarius, the genuine original record is preserved in the fragment of John Malala (torn. ii. p. 2Bi-[leg. 239] 243 [493-5]) and the exact Chronicle of Theophanes (p. 194-204 [a.m. 6055]). Cedrenus (Compend. p. 387, 388) and Zonaras (torn. ii. 1. xiv. p. 69 [c. 9]) seem to hesitate between the ob- solete truth and the growing falsehood. [The statement of Zonaras shows no sign of the growing falsehood.] March 13