d to indulge in luxury at his pleasure, and, if he
had reasoned wisely, to consider his present lot a happy one. For this
reason all the Romans were exceedingly vexed with the man, because,
forsooth, after proving himself the basest of all demons, contrary to
his deserts he was leading a life happier than before. But God, I think,
did not suffer John's retribution to end thus, but prepared for him a
greater punishment. And it fell out thus.

There was in Cyzicus a certain bishop named Eusebius, a man harsh to all
who came in his way, and no less so than John; this man the Cyzicenes
denounced to the emperor and summoned to justice. And since they
accomplished nothing inasmuch as Eusebius circumvented them by his great
power, certain youths agreed together and killed him in the market-place
of Cyzicus. Now it happened that John had become especially hostile to
Eusebius, and hence the suspicion of the plot fell upon him. Accordingly
men were sent from the senate to investigate this act of pollution. And
these men first confined John in a prison, and then this man who had
been such a powerful prefect, and had been inscribed among the
patricians and had mounted the seat of the consuls, than which nothing
seems greater, at least in the Roman state, they made to stand naked
like any robber or footpad, and thrashing him with many blows upon his
back, compelled him to tell his past life. And while John had not been
clearly convicted as guilty of the murder of Eusebius, it seemed that
God's justice was exacting from him the penalties of the world.
Thereafter they stripped him of all his goods and put him naked on board
a ship, being wrapped in a single cloak, and that a very rough one
purchased for some few obols; and wherever the ship anchored, those who
had him in charge commanded him to ask from those he met bread or obols.
Thus begging everywhere along the way he was conveyed to the city of
Antinous in Aegypt. And this is now the third year during which they
have been guarding him there in confinement. As for John himself,
although he has fallen into such troubles, he has not relinquished his
hope of royal power, but he made up his mind to denounce certain
Alexandrians as owing money to the public treasury. Thus then John the
Cappadocian ten years afterward was overtaken by this punishment for his
political career.

XXVI

At that time the Emperor again designated Belisarius General of the
East, and, sending him to Libya,