Belisarius Flavius Belisarius ( , c . 500 – 565 AD ) was a general of the Byzantine Empire . He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian ' s ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire , which had been lost less than a century previously . One of the defining features of Belisarius ' career was his success despite varying levels of support from Justinian . His name is frequently given as one of the so - called " Last of the Romans " . Early life and career . Belisarius was probably born in " Germane " or " Germania " , a fortified town ( some archaeological remains exist ) on the site of present day Sapareva Banya in south - west Bulgaria , in the borders of Thrace and Illyria . Born into an Illyrian or Thracian family , he became a Roman soldier as a young man , serving as bodyguard of Emperor Justin I . He came to the attention of Justin and his nephew , Justinian , as a promising and innovative officer . He was given permission by the emperor to form a bodyguard regiment ( " bucellarii " ) , of heavy cavalry , which he later expanded into a personal household regiment , 1 , 500 strong . Belisarius ' " bucellarii " were the nucleus around which all the armies he would later command were organized . Armed with a lance , ( possibly Hunnish style ) composite bow , and broadsword , they were fully armoured to the standard of heavy cavalry of the day . A multi - purpose unit , they were capable of skirmishing at a distance with bow , like the Huns ; or could act as heavy shock cavalry , charging and crushing an enemy with lance and sword . In essence , they combined the best and most dangerous aspects of both of Rome ' s greatest enemies , the Huns and the Goths . Following Justin ' s death in 527 , the new emperor , Justinian I , appointed Belisarius to command the Roman army in the east to deal with incursions from the Sassanid Empire . He quickly proved himself an able and effective commander , defeating the larger Sassanid army through superior generalship . In June / July 530 , during the Iberian War , he led the Romans to a stunning victory over the Sassanids in the Battle of Dara , followed by a tactical defeat at the Battle of Callinicum on the Euphrates in 531 - this was perhaps a strategic victory in that the Persian retreated to their own borders . This led to the negotiation of an " Eternal Peace " with the Persians , and Roman payment of heavy tributes for years in exchange for peace with Persia . This freed resources for redeployment elsewhere . In 532 , he was the highest - ranking military officer in the Imperial capital of Constantinople when the Nika riots broke out in the city ( among factions of chariot racing fans ) and nearly resulted in the overthrow of Justinian . Belisarius , with the help of the " magister militum " of the Illyricum , Mundus , along with Narses and John the Armenian , suppressed the rebellion with a bloodbath in the Hippodrome , the gathering place of the rebels , that is said to have claimed the lives of 30 , 000 people . Military campaigns . Against the Vandals . For his efforts , Belisarius was rewarded by Justinian with the command of a land and sea expedition against the Vandal Kingdom , mounted in 533 - 534 . The Romans had political , religious , and strategic reasons for such a campaign . The pro - Roman Vandal king Hilderic had been deposed and murdered by the usurper Gelimer , giving Justinian a legal pretext . Furthermore , the Arian Vandals had periodically persecuted the Nicene Christians within their kingdom , many of whom made their way to Constantinople seeking redress . The Vandals had launched many pirate raids on Roman trade interests , hurting commerce in the western areas of the Empire . Justinian also wanted control of the Vandal territory in north Africa , which was vital for guaranteeing Roman access to the western Mediterranean . In the late summer of 533 , Belisarius sailed to Africa and landed near Caput Vada ( near Chebba on the coast of Tunisia ) . He ordered his fleet not to lose sight of the army , then marched along the coastal highway toward the Vandal capital of Carthage . He did this to prevent supplies from being cut off , and to avoid a great defeat such as occurred during Basiliscus ' first attempt to retake northern Africa 65 years before , which had ended in the Roman disaster at the Battle of Cape Bon in 468 . Ten miles from Carthage , the forces of Gelimer ( who had just executed Hilderic ) and Belisarius finally met at the Battle of Ad Decimum on September 13 , 533 . It nearly turned into a defeat for the Romans . Gelimer had chosen his position well and had some success along the main road . The Romans , however , seemed dominant on both sides of the main road to Carthage . At the height of the battle , Gelimer became distraught upon learning of the death of his brother in battle . This gave Belisarius a chance to regroup , and he went on to win the battle and capture Carthage . A second victory at the Battle of Tricamarum on December 15 of the same year resulted in Gelimer ' s surrender early in 534 at Mount Papua , restoring the lost Roman provinces of north Africa to the empire . For this achievement , Belisarius was granted a Roman triumph ( the last ever given ) when he returned to Constantinople . According to Procopius in the procession were paraded the spoils of the Temple of Jerusalem ( the Vandal treasure , including many objects looted from Rome 80 years earlier , the imperial regalia and the menorah of the Second Temple among them ) which had been recovered from the Vandal capital along with Gelimer himself before he was sent into peaceful exile . Medals were stamped in his honor with the inscription " Gloria Romanorum " , though none seem to have survived to modern times . Belisarius was also made sole Consul in 535 , being one of the last persons ever to hold this office , which originated in the ancient Roman Republic . Nevertheless , the recovery of Africa was not complete ; army mutinies and revolts by the native Berbers would plague the new praetorian prefecture of Africa for almost 15 years . Against the Ostrogoths . Justinian now resolved to restore as much of the Western Roman Empire as he could . In 535 , he commissioned Belisarius to attack the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy . Belisarius landed in Sicily and took the island for use as a base against Italy , while Mundus recovered Dalmatia . The preparations for the invasion of the Italian mainland were interrupted in Easter 536 , when Belisarius sailed to Africa to counter an uprising of the local army . His reputation made the rebels abandon the siege of Carthage , and Belisarius pursued and defeated them at Membresa . Thereupon he returned to Sicily , and then crossed into mainland Italy , where he captured Naples in November and Rome in December 536 . In 537 - 538 he successfully defended Rome against the Goths and moved north to take the Ostrogoth capital of Ravenna in 540 , where the Goth king Witiges was captured . Shortly before the taking of Ravenna , the Ostrogoths offered to make Belisarius the western emperor . Belisarius feigned acceptance and entered Ravenna via its sole point of entry , a causeway through the marshes , accompanied by a " comitatus " of " bucellarii " , his personal household regiment . Soon afterwards , he proclaimed the capture of Ravenna in the name of the Emperor Justinian . The Goths ' offer raised suspicions in Justinian ' s mind and Belisarius was recalled . He returned home with the Gothic treasure , king and warriors . Belisarius was recalled in part to deal with the Persian conquest of Syria , a crucial province of the empire . Belisarius took the field and waged a brief , inconclusive campaign in 541 - 542 . He eventually managed to negotiate a truce ( aided with the payment of a large sum of money , 5 , 000 pounds of gold ) , in which the Persians agreed not to attack Roman territory for the next five years . Belisarius returned to Italy in 544 , where he found that the situation had changed greatly . In 541 the Ostrogoths had elected Totila as their new leader and had mounted a vigorous campaign against the Romans , recapturing all of northern Italy and even driving the Romans out of Rome . Belisarius managed to recover Rome briefly but his Italian campaign proved unsuccessful , due in no small part to his limited supplies and reinforcements , perhaps as Justinian ' s empire had suffered from the plague . In 548 / 9 , Justinian relieved him . In 551 , after economic recovery ( from the effects of the plague ) the eunuch Narses led a large army to bring the campaign to a successful conclusion . For his part , Belisarius retired from military affairs . At the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople ( 553 ) , Belisarius was one of the Emperor ' s envoys to Pope Vigilius in their tug of war over The Three Chapters . The Patriarch Eutychius , who presided over this council in place of Pope Vigilius , was the son of one of Belisarius ' generals . The Deposition of Pope Silverius . During the Siege of Rome an incident occurred for which the general would be long condemned : Belisarius , an Orthodox Christian , was commanded by the monophysite Christian Empress Theodora to depose the reigning Pope , who had been installed by the Goths . This Pope was the former subdeacon Silverius , the son of Pope Hormisdas . Belisarius was to replace him with the Deacon Vigilius , Apocrisarius of Pope John II in Constantinople . Vigilius had in fact been chosen in 531 by Pope Boniface II to be his successor , but this choice was strongly criticised by the Roman clergy and Boniface eventually reversed his decision . In 537 , at the height of the siege , Silverius was accused of conspiring with the Gothic King and several Roman senators to secretly open the gates of the city . Belisarius had him stripped of his vestments and exiled to Patara in Lycia in Asia Minor . Following the advocacy of his innocence by bishop of Patara he was ordered to return to Italy at the command of the Emperor Justinian and , if cleared by investigation , reinstated . However , Vigilius had already been installed in his place and Silverus was intercepted before he could reach Rome and exiled once more , this time on the island of Palmarola ( Ponza ) , where he is said to have starved to death . He remains the patron saint of Ponza today . Belisarius , for his part , built a small oratory on the site of the present church of Santa Maria in Trivio in Rome as a sign of his repentance . He also built two hospices for pilgrims and a monastery , which have since disappeared . Santa Maria in Trivio is around the corner from the Trevi fountain ; a 12th - century inscription is the only surviving monument of the great general . Later life and campaigns . The retirement of Belisarius came to an end in 559 , when an army of Kutrigur Bulgars , under Khan Zabergan crossed the Danube River to invade Roman territory for the first time and threatened Constantinople itself . Justinian recalled Belisarius to command the Roman army . In his last campaign , Belisarius defeated the Kutrigurs and drove them back across the river with a greatly outnumbered force at his command . In 562 , Belisarius stood trial in Constantinople on a charge of corruption . The charge is presumed to be trumped - up , and modern research suggests that his former secretary Procopius of Caesarea , may have judged his case . Belisarius was found guilty and imprisoned . However , not long after , Justinian pardoned him , ordered his release , and restored him to favour at the imperial court . In the first five chapters of his " Secret History " , Procopius characterises Belisarius as a cuckold husband , who was emotionally dependent on his debauched wife , Antonina . According to the historian , Antonina cheated on Belisarius with their adopted son , the young Theodosius . Procopius claims that the love affair was well known in the imperial court and the general was regarded as weak and ridiculous ; this view is often considered biased as Procopius nursed a longstanding hatred of both Belisarius and Antonina . Empress Theodora reportedly helped and saved Antonina when Belisarius tried to charge his wife at last . Fittingly , Belisarius and Justinian , whose partnership increased the size of the empire by 45 % , died within a few months of one another in 565 . Belisarius owned the estate of Rufinianae on the Asiatic side of the Constantinople suburbs . He may have died there and been buried near one of the two churches in the area , perhaps Saints Peter and Paul . Legend as a blind beggar . According to a story that gained popularity during the Middle Ages , Justinian is said to have ordered Belisarius ' eyes to be put out , and reduced him to the status of homeless beggar near the Pincian Gate of Rome , condemned to asking passers - by to " give an obolus to Belisarius " ( " date obolum Belisario " ) , before pardoning him . Most modern scholars believe the story to be apocryphal , though Philip Stanhope , a 19th - century British philologist who wrote " Life of Belisarius " — the only exhaustive biography of the great general — believed the story to be true . Based on a parsing of the available primary sources , Stanhope created an argument for the legend ' s authenticity . Though the legend remains of dubious provenance , after the publication of Jean - François Marmontel ' s novel " Bélisaire " ( 1767 ) , this account became a popular subject for progressive painters and their patrons in the later 18th century , who saw parallels between the actions of Justinian and the repression imposed by contemporary rulers . For such subtexts , Marmontel ' s novel received a public censure by Louis Legrand of the Sorbonne , which contemporary divines regarded as model expositions of theological knowledge and clear thinking ( " Catholic Encyclopedia " : " Louis Legrand " ) . Marmontel and the painters and sculptors ( a bust of Belisarius by the French sculptor Jean - Baptiste Stouf is at the J . Paul Getty Museum ) depicted Belisarius as a kind of secular saint , sharing the suffering of the downtrodden poor . The most famous of these paintings , by Jacques - Louis David , combines the themes of charity ( the alms giver ) , injustice ( Belisarius ) , and the radical reversal of power ( the soldier who recognises his old commander ) . Others portray him being helped by the poor after his rejection by the powerful . In art and popular culture . Belisarius was featured in several works of art before the 20th century . The oldest of them is the historical treatise by his very own secretary , Procopius . The " Anecdota " , commonly referred to as the " Arcana Historia " or " Secret History " , is an extended attack on Belisarius and Antonina , and on Justinian and Theodora , indicting Belisarius as a love - blind fool and his wife as unfaithful and duplicitous . Other works include :