Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/818

BELISARIUS. BEL'ISA'BIUS (Slav, byelǔ, white + tsar, prince, czar) (c. 505-565). An heroic and loyal Byzantine general, to whom the Emperor Justinian was indebted for many of his victories. He was born in Illyria, and first attained celebrity as the commander of the Eastern army of the Empire, stationed on the confines of Persia, where in A.D. 530 he gained a victory over a Persian army nearly twice as large as his own. The historian Procopius was at this time secretary of Belisarius. In the following year Belisarius was compelled by the impatience of his troops to offer battle at Callinicum, a town at the junction of the rivers Bilecha and Euphrates; he was defeated, and in consequence recalled. He nevertheless remained faithful to his sovereign, and rendered him great service in Constantinople, where the strife of 'the Greens' and 'the Blues' had endangered the authority and even the life of Justinian. Already a new emperor, Hypatius, had been elected, when Belisarius, at the head of the Life Guards, attacked and slew in the racecourse 30,000 of the rioters and restored tranquillity. Previous to this he had married a wealthy but profligate lady, Antonina, whom he loved with blind uxoriousness. In A.D. 534 Belisarius was sent, with an army of 15,000 men, to recover the Province of Africa held by the Vandal King, Gelimer. Belisarius gained two victories, made the King a prisoner, seized his treasures, and brought him to Constantinople, conquering on the way Sardinia and the Balearic Isles. Medals were struck in Belisarius's honor, and in March, 535, he was invested with the dignity of Consul, and was granted the distinction of a double triumph, according to the old Republican custom.

Belisarius was not idle long. The divisions existing in the royal family of the Ostrogoths induced Justinian to attempt to wrest Italy from their hands. In 535 Belisarius conquered Sicily, and in the autumn of 536 he crossed over to Lower Italy, where all the cities submitted to him except Naples, which he carried by storm. On December 10 he entered Rome, and held it for a year against the Goths, until the enemy raised the siege. In 538 Narses was dispatched with reinforcements for the army in Italy; but some misunderstanding occurred between the two generals, and they failed to relieve Milan, which in 539 was sacked by Braias, nephew of the Gothic King, Vitiges. Narses was recalled from Italy, and Belisarius was placed at the head of both armies. Refusing his assent to a treaty proposed to King Vitiges by Justinian's ambassadors, he drove the Goths back to Ravenna, which he captured in 540, together with Vitiges himself. But before he could complete his conquest of the Goths, he was recalled by Justinian to Constantinople. In 541-42 he was engaged in a campaign against the Persians, who had captured Antioch; but he was again superseded, on account of the slanderous representations made to the Emperor by his own wife, Antonina. His second great struggle with the Ostrogoths now began. In 545 the barbarians, under Totila, had again invaded and reconquered Italy. Belisarius was sent against them, but with an insufficient army. He, however, maintained his ground for three years, harassing the enemy by his skillful movements, and succeeded in regaining possession of Rome; but in spite of his repeated entreaties, no reinforcements were sent to him, and in September, 548, he gave up the command. His rival, Narses, was appointed in his place.

After ten years of retirement, Belisarius once more came forward, at the head of an army hastily collected, and overthrew the Bulgarians, who threatened Constantinople. Toward the end of his life this faithful servant, who at Ravenna had refused the crown of Italy offered to him by the Goths, was accused of a conspiracy against Justinian, and imprisoned, December, 563; but, according to Malala and Theophanes, Justinian became convinced of his innocence, and restored him, after seven months, to all his honors. He died March, 565.

The life of Belisarius has been treated with great license by writers of fiction, especially by Marmontel, who represented the hero as cruelly deprived of sight, and reduced to begging for his bread in the streets of Constantinople. Tzetzes, a writer of the Twelfth Century, states that during his half-year's imprisonment Belisarius suspended a bag from the window of his cell and exclaimed to those who passed by: "Give an obolus to Belisarius, who rose by merit and was cast down by envy;" but no writer contemporary with Belisarius mentions this circumstance. Lord Mahon, in his life of Belisarius (London, 1829), endeavors, but without success, to confirm the tradition, or rather the fiction, of Belisarius's having been deprived of sight and reduced to mendicancy. This fiction supplies the subject of a fine picture by the French painter Gérard. The works of Procopius are the most important original sources for the life of Belisarius. For secondary works, consult: Bury, Later Roman Empire (London, 1893); Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders (Oxford, 1880-85).

BÉLISE, ba'lez'. A vain character in Les femmes savantes, by Molière. She is Philaminte's sister, and tries to win Henriette's lover.

BELIZE, belez'. The capital and chief seaport of the colony of British Honduras (q.v.), in Central America (Map: Central America, C 2). It is situated at the mouth of the Belize River, but the usefulness of its port is greatly impaired by sand-bars. Ocean-going vessels are obliged to load and unload by means of lighters. The town is well built and has considerable trade. Population, about 7000.

BELKINE, byel'ken. The pseudonym of the Russian poet Pushkin.

BELKNAP, bel'n:ip, (1832-1903). An American naval officer, retired in 1894. He was born in New Hampshire. In 1847 he entered the navy as a midshipman. From 1850 to 1858 he served in the East Indies, and commanded a launch before the Barrier Forts on the Canton River, China, in 1856. In the Civil War he commanded the New Ironsides during the bombardment of the forts and batteries in Charleston Harbor, and led the attack at the capture of Fort Fisher, N. C. In 1874, as commander of the Tuscarora, he was engaged in making deep-sea soundings between the United States and Japan, to determine the possibility of laying a submarine cable across the Pacific, and invented an apparatus for securing specimens of soil from the ocean