Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/393

 *stantiate the accusation, he was degraded from his rank and ordered to be detained as a prisoner in his own mansion. This formal incarceration was not relaxed for over six months, but at last Justinian became persuaded of his innocence and allowed him to resume his position at Court. About eight months afterwards the great soldier died, having had nothing but disregard and ingratitude for his lot during the final years of his life, but there is no foundation for the story of later centuries that he was actually reduced to indigence and used to sit as a mendicant in the streets of Constantinople, protesting his blindness and begging a copper of those who passed along. After his death, we read that his fortune was raked into the coffers of the state, whence it is inferred that his daughter Joannina, the only relative he is known to have possessed, must have predeceased him. The death of his stepson Photius is mentioned as having occurred a decade or so previous to his own, but his wife Antonina, notwithstanding that she was so much his senior, appears to have long outlived him and to have ended her days in the odour of sanctity. It is recorded that the pious widow went to live with Vigilantia, the sister of Justinian, and at her suggestion restored a church which had been destroyed by fire.

In the closing scene of his life Justinian is exhibited to us as agitated by his ruling passion, devotion to theological subtleties, and as expending his last breath in an attempt to impose on the Church a heresy which he had rejected