Carus et Carinus et Numerianus

1. That the commonwealth is ruled by fate, and is now raised to the summit, now drawn down to the lowest, the death of Probus has sufficiently betrayed. For when, drawn through the ages, now lifted up by various upheavals, now afflicted, now varied by some storm, now by good fortune, it had endured almost all the things which mortality endures in a single man, it seemed, after the diversity of evils, that it would now remain secure in unbroken felicity, with Probus, after the vigorous emperor Aurelian, tempering the laws and the helm of state in accordance with the judgment of the senate and people. But a huge ruin, in the manner of shipwreck or of conflagration, the soldiers being fatally inflamed, such a prince being removed from the midst, reduced the public hope to such despair that all feared Domitians, Vitelliuses, and Neros. For more is feared concerning the uncertain character of a prince than is hoped, especially in that commonwealth which, pierced with recent wounds, had mourned the captivity of Valerian, the luxury of Gallienus, and the slaughtered limbs of citizens of nearly thirty tyrants claiming the empire for themselves.

2. For if we should wish to recount from the founding of the city what vicissitudes the Roman commonwealth has suffered, we shall find that none has either flourished more in good things or laboured more in evil. And, to begin with Romulus, the true father and parent of the commonwealth — what was his good fortune, who founded, established, and strengthened the commonwealth, and alone of all founders left a perfected city! What shall I then say of Numa, who fortified with religion a state roaring with wars and heavy with triumphs? Our commonwealth, then, flourished down to the times of Tarquinius Superbus; but, having suffered a storm arising from the morals of kings, it avenged itself not without grievous destruction. It grew up thereafter down to the times of the Gallic war; but, as though sunk in a kind of shipwreck, captured save for the citadel, it felt almost more of evil than it swelled with good. Then it restored itself to its former state; but it was so weighed down by the Punic wars and the terror of Pyrrhus that it felt the evils of mortality in the dread of its inmost being.

3. It then grew, Carthage being conquered, with empire sent across the seas; but, afflicted by the discords of allies, the sense of its good fortune diminished, it grew old, afflicted by civil wars down to Augustus. Then, repaired by Augustus — if it can be called repaired when liberty had been laid aside — yet somehow, even if at home it was sad, among foreign nations it flourished. Having endured so many Neros, through Vespasian it lifted up its head; nor, gladdened by all the felicity of Titus, was it wounded by the monstrousness of Domitian; through Nerva and Trajan down to Marcus it was, as usual, better; by the madness and cruelty of Commodus it was torn. After this it felt no good, except the diligence of Severus, down to Alexander, son of Mamaea. It would be long to string together all that follows; for it could not make use of the emperor Valerian, and endured Gallienus for fifteen years. Fortune, loving changes and almost always hostile to justice, begrudged Claudius length of empire; for thus Aurelian was slain, thus Tacitus carried off, thus Probus cut down — so that it may appear that nothing is so pleasing to fortune as that the things which are in public affairs should be altered by the variety of outcomes. But to what end are we detained by such complaints and by the chances of the times? Let us come to Carus, a middling man, so to speak, to be placed among the good rather than the bad princes, and far better, had he not left Carinus as his heir.

4. The native country of Carus is so doubtfully reported by most that, by reason of the great variation, I cannot say which is the true one. For Onesimus, who most diligently wrote the life of Probus, maintains that he was both born and educated at Rome, but of Illyrian parents. But Fabius Ceryllianus, who most skilfully followed the times of Carus, Carinus, and Numerian, asserts that he was born not at Rome but in Illyricum, and born not of Pannonian but of Punic parents. I remember having read in a certain journal that Carus was a man of Mediolanum, but enrolled on the register of the council of the city of Aquileia. He himself — which cannot be denied — as his letter shows, which he wrote as proconsul to his legate, when he exhorted him to good offices, wishes to seem a Roman.

The letter of Carus: "Marcus Aurelius Carus, proconsul of Cilicia, to Junius his legate. Our ancestors, those Roman princes, used this custom in appointing legates, that they showed a specimen of their own character through those to whom they delegated the commonwealth. I, indeed, had it not been so, would not have done otherwise; nor have I done otherwise, if, with your help, I am not deceived. See, then, that we do not differ from our ancestors — that is, from Roman men."

You see that throughout the whole letter he wishes his ancestors to be understood as Roman;

5. and his oration delivered to the senate also indicates this prerogative of lineage. For when he was first made emperor, he wrote thus to the senatorial order. Among other things: "We must rejoice, therefore, Conscript Fathers, that one of your order, and of your lineage too, has been made emperor; wherefore we shall strive that foreigners may not seem better than your own men." Here too it is clear enough that he wished to be understood to be a Roman — that is, sprung from Rome.

This man, then, through civil and military grades, as the inscriptions of his statues indicate, having been made praetorian prefect by Probus, won for himself so much love among the soldiers that, when Probus, so great a prince, had been killed, he alone seemed most worthy of the empire.

6. It has not escaped me that most have suspected, and have set it down in the annals, that Probus was killed by the faction of Carus; but neither the merit of Probus towards Carus nor the character of Carus allows this to be believed — at the same time because he avenged the death of Probus most keenly and most steadfastly. But what Probus thought of him is shown by the letter concerning his honours sent to the senate: "Probus Augustus to his most beloved senate, greeting." Among other things: "Happy would our commonwealth be if I had more men of the stamp of Carus, or of most of you, placed in office. Wherefore I propose, if it please you, that an equestrian statue be decreed to this man of the ancient character, with this addition: that a house be built for him at public expense, with marbles supplied by me. For it befits us to reward the integrity of such a man," and the rest.

7. And, not to string together every least thing, and those things which can be found in other writers: as soon as he had received the empire, with the consent of all the soldiers he undertook the Persian war which Probus was preparing, his sons being named Caesars, and that too in such a way that he destined Carinus to guard the Gauls with most select men, but led with himself Numerian, a young man both most select and most eloquent. And he is said indeed often to have said that he was wretched, because he was sending Carinus as prince to the Gauls, and that the age of Numerian was not such that the Gallic empire — which especially seeks a most steadfast prince — could be entrusted to him. But of these things elsewhere; for there are extant letters of Carus too, in which he complains to his prefect of the character of Carinus, so that it may appear true what Onesimus says, that Carus had it in mind to take away from Carinus the rank of Caesar. But these things, as we have said, must be told elsewhere, in the life of Carinus himself. Now we shall return to our order.

8. With the vast preparation and the entire resources of Probus, the Sarmatian war which he was waging being for the most part finished, Carus set out against the Persians; and, with no one meeting him, he took Mesopotamia and reached as far as Ctesiphon, and, the Persians being occupied with a domestic sedition, earned the title of Persian Imperator. But since, greedy of glory, his prefect especially urging him on — who was seeking destruction for both him and his sons, desiring to rule — he had advanced too far, he was killed, as some say by disease, as more say by lightning. It cannot be denied that at the time when he perished there was suddenly so great a thunder that many are said to have been struck lifeless by the very terror. When, therefore, he was sick and lay in his tent, a huge storm having arisen, with monstrous flashing and, as we have said, more monstrous thunder, he was struck lifeless. Julius Calpurnius, who dictated for the records, sent a letter of this kind to the prefect of the city concerning the death of Carus: Among other things he says: "When Carus, our prince, truly dear (carus), was sick, a storm of such great whirling suddenly arose that all things grew dark, and one could not recognize another; then a continued vibration of flashings and thunderings, like the lightnings of a fiery star, took from us all knowledge of the truth. For suddenly it was cried out that the emperor was dead, and that after that thunder especially which had terrified all. To this was added that the chamberlains, grieving for the death of the prince, set fire to the tent — from whatever cause it was — whence the report arose that he had been killed by lightning, whom, so far as we can know, it is established was carried off by sickness."

9. This letter I have inserted for this reason, because most say that there is a certain force of fate, that a Roman prince cannot cross beyond Ctesiphon, and that therefore Carus was consumed by lightning because he desired to transgress those bounds which have been fixed by fate. But let timidity keep its own arts, to be trampled by the virtues — as it plainly is and shall be permitted, as it was established through the most sacred Caesar Maximian, to conquer the Persians and to advance beyond them; and I think it will come to pass, if the promised favour of the divine powers be not forsaken by our men.

That Carus was a good prince many things indicate, and this too especially: that, as soon as he had obtained the empire, the Sarmatians, made so fierce by the death of Probus that they threatened to invade not only Illyricum but also the Thracias and Italy, he so skilfully crushed by dividing the wars that in very few days he gave the Pannonias security, sixteen thousand of the Sarmatians being slain and twenty thousand of either sex taken captive.

10. This I believe is enough concerning Carus; let us come to Numerian. His history seems both more closely bound to his father and more remarkable through his father-in-law; and although Carinus was the elder in age, and was even named Caesar earlier than he, yet it is necessary that we speak first of Numerian, who followed his father's death, and afterwards of Carinus, whom Augustus Diocletian, a man necessary to the commonwealth, killed after conflicts had been waged.

11. Numerian, the son of Carus, of excellent character and truly worthy of the empire, was pre-eminent too in eloquence, to such a degree that as a boy he declaimed in public, and noble writings of his are reported, more suited, however, to declamation than to the Tullian style. In verse, moreover, he is proclaimed to have been such that he surpassed all the poets of his time; for he contended both with Olympius Nemesianus — who wrote the Halieutica, the Cynegetica, and the Nautica, and who shone forth, distinguished in all the colonies — and with Aurelius Apollinaris, the writer of iambics, who set down his father's deeds in writing, when the same had published the things which he had recited, his oration (sent to the senate, like a ray of light) is reported to have had so much eloquence that a statue was decreed to him, not as to a Caesar but as to a rhetor, to be placed in the Ulpian Library, on which was inscribed: "To Numerian Caesar, the most powerful orator of his times."

12. He was his father's companion in the Persian war. When his father was dead, and he had begun to suffer pain in his eyes — which kind of ailment, as one worn out by excessive wakefulness, was most familiar to him — and was being carried in a litter, he was killed by the faction of Aper, his father-in-law, who was trying to seize the empire. But when, for very many days, the emperor's safety was being inquired after by the soldiers, and Aper kept declaring in the assembly that he could not be seen for this reason, that he was withdrawing his weak eyes from the wind and the sun, the matter was nonetheless betrayed by the stench of the corpse. All rushed upon Aper, whose faction could not lie hidden, and dragged him before the standards and the headquarters. Then a great assembly was held,

13. and a tribunal too was set up. And when it was being asked who should be made the most just avenger of Numerian, who should be given to the commonwealth as a good prince, all, by a divine consent, hailed as Augustus Diocletian — to whom, it was said, many signs of empire had already been given — then in command of the household troops, a man of mark, shrewd, a lover of the commonwealth, a lover of his own, and tempered to all that the occasion had required; of counsel always deep, sometimes, however, of an unblushing one, yet by prudence and excessive persistence restraining the impulses of a restless heart. When he had ascended the tribunal and been hailed Augustus, and it was being asked in what manner Numerian had been killed, drawing his sword and pointing at Aper the praetorian prefect, he struck him, adding to his blow these words: "This is the author of the death of Numerian." Thus Aper, leading a foul life and pursuing base designs, gave an end worthy of his character. My grandfather reported that he had been present at the assembly when Aper was killed by the hand of Diocletian; and he used to say that Diocletian, when he had struck Aper, said: "Glory, Aper; you fall by the right hand of the great Aeneas." At which I marvel, in a man of military life — although I plainly know that very many soldiers make use, whether in Greek or in Latin, of the sayings of the comic poets or of such poets. The comic poets themselves, in short, generally bring on soldiers so as to make them make use of old sayings; for "Are you a hare yourself, and yet you seek a tidbit?" is a saying of Livius Andronicus, and Plautus and Caecilius set down many others.

14. I do not think it idle nor too common to set down here, in this fitting place, a little tale about Diocletian Augustus, which was given to him as an omen of empire — which my grandfather reported to me, learned from Diocletian himself. "When," he says, "Diocletian was lodging among the Tungri in Gaul at a certain inn, while still serving in lesser ranks, and was settling the account of his daily fare with a certain woman, a Druidess, and she said to him, 'Diocletian, you are too greedy, too sparing,' Diocletian is reported to have answered, in jest, not in earnest: 'Then shall I be generous, when I am emperor.' After which word the Druidess is reported to have said, 'Diocletian, do not jest; for you shall be emperor when you have slain a boar (Aper).'"

15. Diocletian always had in his mind the desire of empire, and that with Maximian privy to it, and my grandfather, to whom he himself had reported this saying of the Druidess. In short, deep as he was, he laughed and kept silent; yet in his hunts, where there was opportunity, he always killed boars with his own hand. In short, when Aurelian had received the empire, when Probus, when Tacitus, when Carus himself, Diocletian said: "I am always killing boars, but another enjoys the tidbit." Now that is well known and commonly told, that, when he had killed Aper the praetorian prefect, he is reported to have said: "At last I have killed the fated Boar (Aper)." My grandfather used to say that Diocletian himself said there had been no other reason for his killing him with his own hand than to fulfil the saying of the Druidess and to confirm his own empire; for he would not have wished to become known as so cruel, especially in the first days of his empire, had not necessity drawn him to this atrocity of slaying.

We have spoken of Carus, we have spoken too of Numerian;

16. there remains for us Carinus, the most polluted of all men, an adulterer, a frequent corrupter of youth (I am ashamed to say what Onesimus has set down in writing), himself too making evil use of the nature of his own sex. When this man, as Caesar — the Gauls and Italy, Illyricum, the Spains, and the Britains, and Africa having been assigned to him, being left by his father — held the rank of Caesar, but on this condition, that he should do all that the Augusti do, he stained himself with enormous vices and great foulness. The best of his friends he banished; the worst of men he chose or kept by him. He made prefect of the city one of his clerks — a thing fouler than could ever be conceived or said. The praetorian prefect whom he had, he killed; in his place he made Matronianus, an old go-between, one of his own secretaries, whom he had always had as the accomplice and helper of his debaucheries and lusts. Against his father's will he became consul; he sent haughty letters to the senate; to the common people of the city of Rome, as though to the Roman people, he promised the goods of the senate. In taking and casting off wives he married nine, dismissing very many while pregnant. With mimes, harlots, pantomimes, singers, and pimps he filled the Palatium. He had so great a loathing of subscribing that he set some impure fellow, with whom he always jested at midday, to subscribe for him — whom he generally rebuked

17. for imitating his own hand too well. He had gems on his shoes; he used no clasp unless jewelled; and his belt too was often doubled. In short, very many commonly called him "the king of Illyricum." He never went out to meet prefects, never consuls. To wicked men he showed the greatest deference, and always summoned them to his banquet. A hundred pounds of birds, a hundred of fish, a thousand of various meat he frequently displayed at his banquet; he poured out very much wine; he swam amid fruits and melons. With roses of Mediolanum he strewed both his dining-couches and his bedchambers; he used baths so cold as the chambers below are wont to be, with cold-rooms always full of snow. When in the time of winter he had come to a certain place in which there was a rather warm spring — as is naturally wont to be the case in winter — and had used it in the swimming-pool, he is reported to have said to the bath-attendants: "You have prepared me women's water." And this most famous saying of his is repeated. His father used to hear what he did, and would cry out: "He is not mine." In short, he had resolved to substitute in his place Constantius, who afterwards was made Caesar, but then administered the governorship of Dalmatia — because no better man seemed to be available then — and to kill that man (Carinus), as Onesimus says. It would be long, were I to wish to say more of his luxury. Whoever desires to know it door by door, let him read also Fulvius Asprianus, who tells everything, even to weariness, of his deeds.

18. When this man learned that his father had been consumed by lightning, that his brother had been killed by his father-in-law, and that Diocletian had been hailed Augustus, he gave forth greater vices and crimes, as though now free and released from the reins of family affection by the deaths of his own kin. Nor, however, was there wanting to him vigour of mind for vindicating the empire for himself; for against Diocletian he fought in many battles, but in the last battle, joined near the Margus, being defeated, he fell.

This was the end of three princes — Carus, Numerian, and Carinus. After them the gods gave us Diocletian and Maximian as princes, joining to such men Galerius and Constantius, of whom the one was born to wipe out the disgrace received in the captivity of Valerian, the other to restore the Gauls to Roman laws. Four princes indeed of the world, brave, wise, kindly, and exceedingly liberal, of one mind towards the commonwealth, most reverent of the Roman senate, moderate, friends of the people, most holy, grave, religious, and such princes as we have always prayed for. Whose lives Claudius Eusthenius, who was secretary of letters to Diocletian, wrote in single books — which I have said for this reason, lest anyone should require so great a matter of me, especially since even the life of living princes is not told without reproach.

19. The reign of Carus and Carinus and Numerian had this most memorable feature: that they gave the Roman people games adorned with new spectacles, which we have seen depicted in the Palatium, around the portico of the stables. For he exhibited a rope-walker who was borne, as it were in the winds, in high boots; and a wall-walker who, an outwitted bear pursuing him, ran along a wall; and bears acting a mime; and likewise a hundred trumpeters sounding together with one blast, and a hundred horn-blowers, a hundred flute-players, a hundred pan-pipers too; pantomimes and gymnasts a thousand; besides, a stage-engine, by whose flames the scaffold burned up, which Diocletian afterwards made more magnificent. He summoned mimes besides from everywhere. He exhibited also a Sarmatian game, than which nothing is more pleasant. He exhibited Cyclops-plays. Gold and silver were given to the Greek artists and gymnasts and players and musicians; silken garments too were given.

20. But all these things — I know not how much favour they have with the people — are of no moment with good princes. In short, a saying of Diocletian is reported: when a certain officer of his largesses was praising to him the show of Carus, saying that those princes had pleased greatly on account of the theatrical games and the games of the circus, "Then," said he, "Carus was well laughed at during his reign." In short, when Diocletian, all the nations being summoned, gave games, he used his liberality most sparingly, saying that games ought to be the more chaste when a censor is looking on.

Let Junius Messalla read this passage — whom I dare freely to blame; for he gave his patrimony to the players, denied it to his heirs, gave his mother's tunic to a mime-actress, his father's cloak to a mime, and rightly — if a tragic actor should use his grandmother's gilded and purple mantle for a trailing robe. There is still inscribed on the Tyrian-purple mantle of a flute-player, in which he exults as in a spoil of nobility, the name of Messalla's wife. And now why should I speak of linens sought from Egypt? Why of those from Tyre and Sidon, transparent in their fineness, glittering with purple, most renowned for the difficulty of their embroidery? Hooded cloaks sought from the Atrebates were given as gifts, cloaks of Canusium and of Africa were given. Riches on the stage . . .