Note 1256 — Chapter IV · PRE-IMPERIAL CAREER OF THEODORA: THE CONSORT OF JUSTINIAN

Later we hear from Procopius (De Bel. Goth., i, 5) that in 535 he had just become old enough to receive a separate command in the army; which probably indicates that he had then attained to the age of eighteen, the period when a young Roman was freed from his guardian (curator) and became sui juris. About nine years earlier (c. 526, De Bel. Pers., i, 12) Belisarius is referred to in very similar terms, so that the relative ages of these two characters can be determined with tolerable accuracy. Belisarius was then “πρῶτος ὑπηνήτης.”