capacity, and both sustained, with honour, the august character which the fear of punishment had engaged them to assume, till they sunk at length beneath the superior genius of Probus. He used the victory with his accustomed moderation, and spared the fortunes as well as the lives of their innocent families.59 Triumph emperor The arms of Probus had now suppressed all the foreign and A.D. 281. domestic enemies of the state. His mild but steady adminis- of the tration confirmed the re-establishment of the public tranquillity; Probus nor was there left in the provinces a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or even a robber, to revive the memory of past disorders. It was time that the emperor should revisit Rome, and celebrate his own glory and the general happiness. The triumph due to the valour of Probus was conducted with a magnificence suitable to his fortune, and the people who had so lately admired the trophies of Aurelian gazed with equal pleasure on those of his heroic successor.60 We cannot, on this occasion, forget the desperate courage of about fourscore Gladiators, reserved, with near six hundred others, for the inhuman sports of the amphitheatre. Disdaining to shed their blood for the amusement of the populace, they killed their keepers, broke from the place of their confinement, and filled the streets of Rome with blood and confusion. After an obstinate resistance they were overpowered and cut in pieces by the regular forces; but they obtained at least an honourable death, and the satisfaction of a just revenge.61 line The military discipline which reigned in the camps of Pro- His discipbus was less cruel than that of Aurelian, but it was equally rigid and exact. The latter had punished the irregularities of the soldiers with unrelenting severity, the former prevented them by employing the legions in constant and useful labours. When Probus commanded in Egypt, he executed many considerable works for the splendour and benefit of that rich country. The navigation of the Nile, so important to Rome 59 Proculus, who was a native of Albengue on the Genoese coast, armed two thousand of his own slaves. His riches were great, but they were acquired by robbery. It was afterwards a saying of his family, Nec latrones esse, nec principes sibi placere. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 247 [ib. 13: sibi non placere esse vel principes vel latrones]. 60 Hist. August. p. 240 [xxviii. 19]. 61 Zosim. 1. i. p. 66 [71]. His death itself, was improved; and temples, bridges, porticoes, and 65 But, in the prosecution of a favourite scheme, the best of men, satisfied with the rectitude of their intentions, are subject to forget the bounds of moderation; nor did Probus himself sufficiently consult the patience and disposition of his fierce legionaries. The dangers of the military profession seem only to be compensated by a life of pleasure and idleness; but, if the duties of the soldier are incessantly aggravated by the labours of the peasant, he will at last sink under the intolerable burden, or shake it off with indignation. The imprudence of Probus is said to have inflamed the discontent of his troops. More attentive 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. The unguarded expression proved 62 Hist. August. p. 236 [ib. 9]. 63 Aurel. Victor. in Prob. But the policy of Hannibal, unnoticed by any more ancient writer, is irreconcileable with the history of his life. He left Africa when he was nine years old, returned to it when he was forty-five, and immediately lost his army in the decisive battle of Zama. Livius, xxx. 37 [leg. 35]. 64 Hist. August. p. 240 [ib. 18, 8]. Eutrop. ix. 17. Aurel. Victor in Prob. Victor Junior [cp. 37, 3]. He revoked the prohibition of Domitian, and granted a general permission of planting vines to the Gauls, the Britons, and the Pannonians. 65 Julian bestows a severe, and indeed excessive, censure on the rigour of Probus, who, as he thinks, almost deserved his fate. [In the Casars.] 66 Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 241 [ib. 20, 3-6]. He lavishes on this idle hope a large stock of very foolish eloquence. 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. The tower was instantly forced, A.D. 282, 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.68 August and char Carus When the legions had indulged their grief and repentance Election for the death of Probus, their unanimous consent declared acter of 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.69 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 professions began to be irrecoverably separated from each other, they were united in the person of Carus. Notwithstanding the 67 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.).] 68 Probus, et vere probus situs est: Victor omnium gentium Barbararum; victor etiam tyrannorum. [He died shortly before the 29th August, 282, we can infer from Alexandrian coins. There is some variation in the sources as to the length of his reign. Hist. Aug. xxviii. 21, 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.] 69 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. The senti ments of and people 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: 70 but his austere temper insensibly 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 tyrants." When Carus assumed the purple, he was about sixty years of age, and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian, had already attained the season of manhood.72 The authority of the senate expired with Probus; nor was the senate the repentance of the soldiers displayed by the same dutiful regard for the civil power which they had testified after the unfortunate death of Aurelian. The election of Carus was decided without expecting the approbation of the senate, and the new emperor contented himself with announcing, in a cold and stately epistle, that he had ascended the vacant throne.78 A behaviour so very opposite to that of his amiable predecessor afforded no favourable presage of the new reign; and the Romans, deprived of power and freedom, asserted their privilege of licentious murmurs.74 The voice of congratulation and flattery was not however silent; and we may still peruse, with pleasure and contempt, an eclogue, which was composed on the accession of the emperor Carus. Two shepherds, avoiding the noon-tide heat, retire into the cave of Faunus. On a spreading beech they discover some recent characters. The rural deity had described, in prophetic verses, the felicity empire under the reign of so great a prince. approach of that hero, who, receiving on his shoulders the sink promised to the Faunus hails the 70 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 [xxx. 6]. 71 Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 242, 249 [xxix. 1, xxx. 3]. Julian excludes the Emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of the Cæsars. 72 John Malala, tom. i. p. 401. But the authority of that ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from Carus the city of Čarrhæ, and the province of Caria, the latter of which is mentioned by Homer. [The names of the sons were M. Aurelius Carinus and M. Aurelius Numerianus.] 73 Hist. Aug. p. 249 [xxx. 5]. Carus congratulated the senate that one of their own order was made emperor. [The letter is a fabrication.] 74 Hist. Aug. p. 242 [xxviii. 24]. ing weight of the Roman world, shall extinguish war and faction, and once again restore the innocence and security of the golden age.75 feats the ans, and into the It is more than probable that these elegant trifles never Carus dereached the ears of a veteran general, who, with the consent of Sarmatithe legions, was preparing to execute the long-suspended design marches of the Persian war. Before his departure for this distant ex-East pedition, Carus conferred on his two sons, Carinus and Numerian, the title of Cæsar; and, investing the former with almost an equal share of the Imperial power, directed the young prince, first to suppress some troubles which had arisen in Gaul, and afterwards to fix the seat of his residence at Rome, and to assume the government of the Western provinces.76 The safety of Illyricum was confirmed by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians; sixteen thousand of those barbarians remained on the field of battle, and the number of captives amounted to twenty thousand. The old emperor, animated with the fame. and prospect of victory, pursued his march, in the midst of winter, through the countries of Thrace and Asia Minor, and at length, with his younger son, Numerian, arrived on the confines of the Persian monarchy. There, encamping on the summit of a lofty mountain, he pointed out to his troops the opulence and luxury of the enemy whom they were about to invade. 77 A.D. 283. He gives the Persian dors The successor of Artaxerxes, Varanes or Bahram, though he had subdued the Segestans, one of the most warlike nations audience to of Upper Asia,78 was alarmed at the approach of the Romans ambassaand endeavoured to retard their progress by a negotiation of peace. His ambassadors entered the camp about sunset, at the time when the troops were satisfying their hunger with a frugal repast. The Persians expressed their desire of being introduced to the presence of the Roman emperor. They were at length conducted to a soldier, who was seated on the grass. A piece of stale bacon and a few hard peas composed his supper. A 75 See the first eclogue of Calphurnius. The design of it is preferred by Fontenelle to that of Virgil's Pollio. See tom. iii. p. 148. [See above, chap. xi. note 89.] 76 Hist. August. p. 250 [xxx. 7]. Eutropius, ix. 18. 77 [And Quadi, see Eckhel, 7, 522.] Pagi, Annal. 78 Agathias, 1. iv. p. 135. We find one of his sayings in the Bibliothèque Orientale of M. d'Herbelot. "The definition of humanity includes all other virtues." [The Persian king was Varahran II.] |