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Carus (Marcus Aurelius Carus Augustus; c. 222 – July or August 283) was Roman Emperor from 282 to 283, and was 60 at ascension. During his short reign, Carus fought the Germanic tribes and Sarmatians along the Danube frontier with success.

He died while campaigning against the Sassanid Empire, shortly after his forces sacked its capital Ctesiphon. He was succeeded by his sons Carinus and Numerian, creating a dynasty which, though short-lived, provided further stability to the resurgent empire.

Biography
Carus, whose name before the accession may have been Marcus Numerius Carus, was born, according to differing accounts, either in Gaul, Illyricum or Africa. Modern scholarship inclines to the former view, placing his birth at Narbo (modern Narbonne) in Gaul though he was educated in Rome. Little can be said with certainty of his life and rule. Due to the decline of literature, the arts, and the want of any good historians of that age, what is known is almost invariably involved in contradiction and doubt. He was apparently a senator and filled various posts, bith civil and military before being appointed prefect of the Praetorian Guard by the emperor Probus in 282.

After the murder of Probus at Sirmium, Carus was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers. Although Carus severely avenged the death of Probus, he was suspected as an accessory to the deed. He does not seem to have returned to Rome after his accession, contenting himself with an announcement to the Senate. This was a marked departure from the constitutionalism of his immediate predecessors, Tacitus and Probus, who at least outwardly respected the authority of the senate, and was the precursor to the formal establishment of military autocracy under Diocletian.

Campaign against the Sassanids and death
Bestowing the title of Caesar upon his sons Carinus and Numerian, he left Carinus in charge of the western portion of the empire to look after some disturbances in Gaul and took Numerian with him on an expedition against the Persians, which had been contemplated by Probus. Having inflicted a signal defeat on the Quadi and Sarmatians on the Danube, for which he was given the title Germanicus Maximus, Carus proceeded through Thrace and Asia Minor, annexed Mesopotamia, pressed on to Seleucia and Ctesiphon, and marched his soldiers beyond the Tigris.

The Sassanid King Bahram II, limited by internal opposition and his troops occupied with a campaign in modern-day Afghanistan, could not effectively defend his territory. The victories of Carus avenged all the previous defeats suffered by the Romans against the Sassanids, and he received the title of Persicus Maximus.

Rome's hopes of further conquest were cut short by his death, which occurred during a violent storm. His death was variously attributed to disease, the effects of lightning, a wound received in the campaign against the Persians, or an assassination planned by his Praetorian prefect, Lucius Flavius Aper. According to a letter to the praefect of Rome from Carus' personal secretary, transcribed in the Augustan History, Carus died of a commonplace illness, but the firing of his tent by his servants, who were maddened by grief, and the violence of the storm which raged over the camp at the hour of his death gave rise to its attribution to lightning, which was generally accepted. The fact that he was leading a victorious campaign, and his son Numerian succeeded him without opposition, suggest that his death was indeed a natural one.

Legacy
Like the splendid conquests of Trajan, 160 years before, Carus' gains were immediately relinquished by his successor. His son Numerian, naturally of an unwarlike disposition, was forced by the army to retreat back over the Tigris. The report of the lighting strike was evidently widely accepted in the camp, and the superstitious awe of the troops inclined them to ascribe Carus' death to the wrath of the Gods. Rumors had been spread of dark oracles, affixing the limits of the Empire on the Tigris, and threatening destruction against the Roman who should presume beyond the river in arms. Persia was abandoned to her rightful possessors, and not till Diocletian, a decade later, was the Persian contest decided in Rome's favor, by that emperor's decisive victory.

In the sphere of civil affairs, Carus is remembered principally for the final suppression of the authority of the senate, which had been partially restored under Tacitus and Probus. He declined to accept their ratification of his election, informing them of the fact by a haughty and distant dispatch. He was the last emperor to have united a civil with a military education, in that age when the two were increasingly detached; Diocletian (Imp. 284-305), who succeeded Carus after the brief reign of the latter's sons, was to confirm and formalize the separation of professions, and the autocratic foundation of imperial rule.

Though Carus was known throughout his life for his austere and virtuous manners, the suspicion of his complicity in Probus' death, along with his haughty conduct towards the senate, tarnished his reputation before his death, and Julian, as Gibbon observes, conspicuously numbers him amongst the tyrants of Rome, in his catalogue of The Caesars.