File:Belisarius plastered.jpg

Decorative plasterwork in the arcway of the Palazzo Beneventano del Bosco, Siracusa, built in 1779. A reminder of the fate of any general who gets to powerful, perhaps?

Flavius Belisarius (505(?) – 565) was one of the greatest generals of the Byzantine Empire and one of the most acclaimed generals in history. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian I's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Western Roman Empire, which had been lost just under a century previously.

"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 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 thorough parsing of the available primary sources, Stanhope created a noteworthy, if not wholly convincing argument for the legend's authenticity."