Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinians ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously.

Belisarius was probably born in Germane or Germania, a fortified town on the site of presentday Sapareva Banya in southwest Bulgaria, in the borders of Thrace and Illyria. Born into an Illyrian or Thracian family of possible Gothic ancestry, he spoke Latin as a mother tongue and became a Roman soldier as a young man, serving as bodyguard of Emperor Justin I.

Source: Wikipedia