y the ancients
with pious horror, as singularly devoted to the wrath of Heaven. [78]
An oracle was remembered, which marked the River Tigris as the fatal
boundary of the Roman arms. The troops, terrified with the fate of Carus
and with their own danger, called aloud on young Numerian to obey the
will of the gods, and to lead them away from this inauspicious scene of
war. The feeble emperor was unable to subdue their obstinate prejudice,
and the Persians wondered at the unexpected retreat of a victorious
enemy. [79]

[Footnote 77: See Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v. 71, &c.]

[Footnote 78: See Festus and his commentators on the word Scribonianum.
Places struck by lightning were surrounded with a wall; things were
buried with mysterious ceremony.]

[Footnote 79: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Aurelius Victor seems to
believe the prediction, and to approve the retreat.]

The intelligence of the mysterious fate of the late emperor was soon
carried from the frontiers of Persia to Rome; and the senate, as well as
the provinces, congratulated the accession of the sons of Carus. These
fortunate youths were strangers, however, to that conscious superiority,
either of birth or of merit, which can alone render the possession of
a throne easy, and as it were natural. Born and educated in a private
station, the election of their father raised them at once to the rank of
princes; and his death, which happened about sixteen months afterwards,
left them the unexpected legacy of a vast empire. To sustain with temper
this rapid elevation, an uncommon share of virtue and prudence was
requisite; and Carinus, the elder of the brothers, was more than
commonly deficient in those qualities. In the Gallic war he discovered
some degree of personal courage; [80] but from the moment of his arrival
at Rome, he abandoned himself to the luxury of the capital, and to the
abuse of his fortune. He was soft, yet cruel; devoted to pleasure,
but destitute of taste; and though exquisitely susceptible of vanity,
indifferent to the public esteem. In the course of a few months, he
successively married and divorced nine wives, most of whom he left
pregnant; and notwithstanding this legal inconstancy, found time to
indulge such a variety of irregular appetites, as brought dishonor on
himself and on the noblest houses of Rome. He beheld with inveterate
hatred all those who might remember his former obscurity, or censure
his present conduct. He banished, or put t