This study proposes a novel glaucoma identification system from fundus images through the deep belief network (DBN) optimized by the elephant-herding optimization (EHO) algorithm. Initially, the input image undergoes the preprocessing steps of noise removal and enhancement processes, followed by optical disc (OD) and optical cup (OC) segmentation and extraction of structural, intensity, and textural features. Most discriminative features are then selected using the ReliefF algorithm and passed to the DBN for classification into glaucomatous or normal. To enhance the classification rate of the DBN, the DBN parameters are fine-tuned by the EHO algorithm. The model has experimented on public and private datasets with 7280 images, which attained a maximum classification rate of 99.4%, 100% specificity, and 99.89% sensitivity. The 10-fold cross validation reduced the misclassification and attained 98.5% accuracy. Investigations proved the efficacy of the proposed method in avoiding bias, dataset variability, and reducing false positives compared to similar works of glaucoma classification. The proposed system can be tested on diverse datasets, aiding in the improved glaucoma diagnosis