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 dig a ditch and throw up a hasty rampart, and at nightfall he lit innumerable fires, to convey the impression of superior numbers. In the morning the cavalry of the Bulgarians advanced to the attack. Belisarius, knowing the weakness of his civic troops, placed them in ambuscade on either flank, while with the guards he received the charge of the enemy. But when the Bulgarians dashed headlong upon the assault, they were met in front by a compact body of disciplined soldiers, through whose lines they could not break, and were assailed on either flank by showers of arrows from the troops in ambush. They turned and fled. The chief withdrew his army. The Bulgarians wasted the summer in the plains of Thrace, but with the autumn they returned with their Slavonian allies, who went back across the Danube.

The people, whose lives had been saved by the skill and prudence of the veteran, surrounded him on his return with acclamations of gratitude. The worthless emperor, whose throne he had preserved after augmenting its splendour by substantial accession and dignity, received him in thankless silence. Belisarius retired to his own palace. Two years afterwards a conspiracy against the life of the aged emperor was discovered. Two of those implicated, forced probably by torture, declared that they had acted by orders of the great general. Belisarius refused to fly while there was yet time, and indignantly appeared before his judges. The case was prejudged; and though the life of the so-called criminal was spared, his fortune was confiscated, and he himself was kept a prisoner in his own house for eight