hidden away. Nevertheless further trials awaited him; an unpopular bishop of Cyzicus was murdered, and he was accused of the deed. A commission of Senators repaired to the place, and, although his innocence was proved, old charges of peculation were raked up, and in the end he was stripped of everything, and turned out as a mendicant with a single garment. He was then shipped to Alexandria, where he was forced to beg his bread; again under some pretence he was seized and imprisoned for three years; yet, while living as a vagrant, he often had the audacity to try and raise money by claiming arrearages from defaulting debtors of the treasury.[1]
We are now in a position to take up the thread of our narrative as regards Belisarius, whom we left, in a state of mental distraction over his wife's irregularities, in Mesopotamia. As soon as he came up with her he placed her under guard in strict seclusion, divested of the honours due to her rank, and began to prepare a process for the severance of their relationship for the future. But he vacillated, postponing any decisive step; and at length a will more powerful than his own intervened to deprive him of all option in the matter. The news of her confidant's disgrace was quickly carried to Theodora, and she resolved that her right to do as she pleased should be vindicated in the most complete and effectual manner. All her adversaries were arrested at a single coup, and Belisarius was commanded peremptorily to make his peace with his wife. Photius was
- ↑ Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 25, where all the circumstances relative to the fall of John are narrated at length. His disappearance, however, was in no way a public benefit, as, after a few months Peter Barsymes took his place. Although a man of higher stamp, his hand weighed just as heavily on the taxpayers; Anecd., 22, 25.
