deduced his own birth,
or that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa. [64]
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 severe justice which he exercised against the
assassins of Probus, to whose favor and esteem he was highly indebted,
he could not escape the suspicion of being accessory to a deed from
whence he derived the principal advantage. He enjoyed, at least, before
his elevation, an acknowledged character of virtue and abilities;
[65] 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. [66] 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. [67]

[Footnote 64: Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at Narbonne
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. Carus himself was educated in the capital. See Scaliger
Animadversion. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 241.]

[Footnote 65: 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.]

[Footnote 66: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 242, 249. Julian excludes
the emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of the Caesars.]

[Footnote 67: John Malala, tom. i. p. 401. But the authority of that
ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from Carus the
city of Carrhae, and the province of Caria, the latter of which is
mentioned by Homer.]

The authority of the senate expired with Probus; nor was 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. [68] A
behavior so very opposite to that of his amiable predecessor afforded
no f