After his death, they raised the _præfectus prætorio_ Carus to the throne. Whether Carus was born at Rome, or in Illyricum, or at Narbonne, we do not know: in a letter which is still extant, he calls himself a Roman senator,—a proof that the _senatus consultum_ in the reign of Gallienus, that no senator should be a general, must have been something different from what is generally believed, and even Gibbon thinks it to have been. Perhaps Gallienus only took away from the senators the government of the provinces with the _imperium_, so that this was put an end to altogether, except in the short time of the reign of Tacitus; but even then, he did not shut them out from every kind of military command. As Carus also was quite in his element when there was a war, he led his soldiers against the Persians with the most signal success; and this was the last war but one in which this was the case: he is said to have retaken Ctesiphon; but this cannot be positively asserted. However this may be, Persia had lost the power which she had in the days of Ardaschir; and the Persian king Bahram, who was paralysed by fear, was quite unable to make head against the Roman army. Carus penetrated very far beyond the Persian frontier. Here he is said to have been struck by lightning in his tent:—whether this be true, or whether he did not rather fall by the hands of assassins, we cannot make out for certain. The soldiers, however, could not be got to advance any further: the omen of the _prætorium_ struck by lightning was too dreadful. Numerian the son of Carus, a well educated and well-bred young man, good-hearted but unwarlike, was in the camp; the other one, Carinus, had remained in Rome: the latter was another Commodus, being a profligate and a tyrant. Numerian died, and the _præfectus prætorio_, Arrius Aper, is said to have concealed his death to found his own dominion on it. But it was detected; and it was laid to the charge of Aper by the Illyrian Diocletian, who was backed by the favour of the army. Being the most distinguished of the generals, he put forth claims to the throne: as for Carinus, he had made himself so hateful by his profligacy, that the army would not hear of him. Diocletian stabbed Aper with his own hands. A female soothsayer had told him that he should ascend the throne, if he killed an _aper_; and therefore in all his hunts, he had tried to kill a wild boar. The oracle now came true. Carinus gathered together the legions of the west, and great battle in Mœsia decided the fate of the throne. For when Carinus was on the point of gaining the victory, he was stabbed by a man whom he had foully wronged; and the soldiers now acknowledged Diocletian, who had been all but beaten, as their emperor, 285. DIOCLETIAN. LITERATURE AND GENERAL STATE OF THE THEN WORLD. MAXIMIAN. HIS SUCCESSORS. CONSTANTINE.