400 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP. When the legions had indulged their grief and re- "Y T T o o L_ pentance for the death of Probus, their unanimous con- Election ggjjj declared Car us, his pretorian prefect, the most and cha- . ,> , . .if r^ racter of deservmg of the imperial throne. Every circumstance Carus. ^j^^^ relates to this prince appears of a mixed and doubtful nature. He gloried in the title of Roman citizen ; and affected to compare the purity of his blood with the foreign and even barbarous origin of the pre- ceding emperors; yet the most inquisitive of his con- temporaries, very far from admitting his claim, have variously deduced his own birth, or that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa ^ Though a soldier, he had received a learned education ; though a senator, he was invested with the first dignity of the army ; and in an age when the civil and military pro- fessions began to be irrecoverably separated from each other, they were united in the person of Carus. Not- withstanding the severe justice which he exercised against the assassins of Probus, to whose favour and esteem he was highly indebted, he could not escape the suspicion of being accessary to a deed from whence he derived the principal advantage. He enjoyed, at least before his elevation, an acknowledged character of virtue and abilities*; but his austere temper insensi- bly degenerated into moroseness and cruelty ; and the imperfect writers of his life almost hesitate whether they shall not rank him in the number of Roman ty- rants ". When Carus assumed the purple, he was about sixty years of age, and his two sons, Carinus and Nu- merian, had already attained the season of manhoods
- Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at Narbonne, in Illyri-
cum, confounded by Eutropius with the more famous city of that name in Gaul. His father might be an African, and his mother a noble Roman. Carus himself was educated in the capital. See Scaliger. Animadversion. adEuseb. Chron. p.241.
- Probus had requested of the senate an equestrian statue and a marble
palace, at the public expense, as a just recompense of the singular merit of Carus. Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 249. " Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 242. 249. Julian excludes the emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of the Caesars. " John Malela, torn. i. p. 401. But tlie authority of that ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from Carus, the city of Carrhaj, and the province of Caria, the latter of which is mentioned by Homer.
