A.D. 559.
The majesty of the Roman people no longer commanded the respect of the universe, the valour of its legions no longer spread terror among the barbarians, in the time of Justinian. A king of the Huns, named Zabergan, ventured to advance, in 559, to the very walls of Constantinople, and to threaten the imperial city with pillage. There was but a feeble garrison within its ramparts, but in the moment of terror it was remembered that they possessed Belisarius. That great man was instantly dragged from the obscurity in which he languished. Called upon to drive from the walls of the capital the dangers by which it was surrounded, he resumed his genius, his activity, and his valour; no one could perceive that years had cooled his ardour. His first care was to surround his camp with a wide ditch, to protect it from the insults of the Huns, and to deceive them with regard to the number of his troops by lighting fires in all parts of the plain. There was only one passage by which the Huns could reach Constantinople, and that was through a hollow way, bordered on each side by a thick forest. Belisarius began by lining the two sides of this defile with two hundred archers; he then advanced at the head of three hundred soldiers, trained to conquer under his orders. He was followed by the rest of his troops, who were ordered to utter loud cries, and to drag along the ground large branches of trees, so as to raise vast clouds of dust round them. Everything succeeded; the barbarians, charged in flank, blinded by the dust which the wind blew in their eyes, terrified by the cries of the Romans, and the noise of their arms, and attacked in front with vigour by Belisarius and his chosen band, took to flight without striking a blow. This horde of barbarians hastily departed, to carry the evils of plunder, fire, and death elsewhere.