to the interests of mankind than to those of the army, he expressed the vain hope that, by the establishment of universal peace, he should soon abolish the necessity of a standing and mercenary force.[1] The unguarded expression proved fatal to him. In one of the hottest days of summer, as he severely urged the unwholesome labour of draining the marshes of Sirmium, the soldiers, impatient of fatigue, on a sudden threw down their tools, grasped their arms, and broke out into a furious mutiny. The emperor, conscious of his danger, took refuge in a lofty tower, constructed for the purpose of surveying the progress of the work.[2] The tower was A.D. 282, Augustinstantly forced, and a thousand swords were plunged at once into the bosom of the unfortunate Probus. The rage of the troops subsided as soon as it had been gratified. They then lamented their fatal rashness, forgot the severity of the emperor whom they had massacred, and hastened to perpetuate, by an honourable monument, the memory of his virtues and victories.[3]
Election and character of CarusWhen the legions had indulged their grief and repentance for the death of Probus, their unanimous consent declared Carus,his Prætorian præfect, the most deserving of the Imperial throne. Every circumstance that 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 preceding emperors: yet the most inquisitive of his contemporaries, very far from admitting his claim, have variously deduced his own birth, or that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa.[4] Though a soldier, he had received a learned education; though a senator,- ↑ Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 241 [ib. 20, 3-6]. He lavishes on this idle hope a large stock of very foolish eloquence.
- ↑ Turris ferrata. It seems to have been a moveable tower, and cased with iron. Carus (according to Greek sources) was proclaimed Imperator in Rætia before the death of Probus. In fact the hesitation of Probus about proceeding to quell the rebellion seems to have been the immediate cause of his fall. See Anon. Contin. of Dio, 5, and John of Antioch, fr. 160 (F. H. G. iv.).]
- ↑ Probus, et vere probus situs est: Victor omnium gentium Barbararum; victor etiam tyrannorum. [He survived the 29th August, 276, we know by Alexandrian coins. There is some variation in the sources as to the length of his reign. Hist. Aug. xxviii. 2i, he was killed in the fifth year of his reign; Aurelius Victor, Cæs. 37, 4, he reigned somewhat less than six years, epit. 37, 1, six years; Cassiodorus, Chron., he reigned six years, three months; Orosius, 7, 24, gives him six years, four months.]
- ↑ Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at Narbonne [Narona] in Illyricum, 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. [M. Aurelius] Carus himself was educated in the capital. See Scaliger, Animadversion, ad Euseb. Chron. p. 241.
