Probus returns from Syria and forces Proculus…

Emperor Wu is known for his extravagance and sensuality, especially after the unification of China; legends boast of his incredible potency among ten thousand concubines.

In 281, the emperor takes five thousand women from Sun Hao's palace into his own, and hereafter becomes even more concentrated on feasting and enjoying the women, rather than on important matters of state.

It is said that there are so many beautiful women in the palace that he does not know whom he should have sexual relations with; he therefore rides on a small cart drawn by goats, and wherever the goats stop, he stops there as well.

Because of this, many of the women plant bamboo leaves and salt outside their bedrooms—both items said to be favored by goats.

Empress Yang Zhi's father Yang Jun and uncles Yang Yao and Yang Ji have become the de facto powers.

Bonosus, born in Hispania of a Briton father and a Gaulish mother, had lost his father early in life but his mother had helped him to receive a good education.

He had had a distinguished military career and an excellent service record when, while he was stationed on the Rhine, the Germans had managed to burn and destroy the fleet under his command.

Fearful of the consequences, he had proclaimed himself Roman emperor at Cologne (Colonia Agrippina) jointly with Proculus.

This does not save him from Probus, who after a lengthy and protracted struggle, manages to defeat him.

Seeing no way out, Bonosus hangs himself, leaving a wife and two sons, who Probus treats with honor.

Probus returns to Rome near the end of 281 and holds a triumph to mark his achievements.

A new city is constructed in Fuzhou slightly south of the original city, Ye, under the Jin Dynasty (the main street of the city has remained unchanged since this time).

West Lake, East Lake (now silted up) and numerous canals in the city of Fuzhou are constructed.

Probus has spent his six-year reign thus far in continual frontier warfare against hostile tribes on the Rhine and Danube, complicated by insurrections in Britain, Gaul, and the East.

His policy of allowing outside tribes to settle within the empire will prove dangerous.

Fourth-century writers attest to his intense interest in agriculture: when not campaigning against barbarians or rebels, Probus has put the soldiers to work, making them drain land, erect buildings and defenses, build bridges, and even plant vineyards in Gaul, Spain, and Britain.

Consequently, army moral is at a low point in the spring of 282, when Probus sets out for Sirmium to prepare a campaign against the Persians.

The armies stationed in Raetia and Noricum along the Upper Danube in September 282 proclaim as emperor the praetorian prefect, whose name before the accession may have been Marcus Numerius Carus.

Born, probably, at Narbo (modern Narbonne) in Gaul, but educated at Rome, he had been a senator, and had filled various civil and military posts before his appointment as prefect of the Praetorian Guard by Probus earlier in the year.

Probus immediately sends troops to engage Carus, but they defect to the usurper.

As this news reaches Probus' camp, his troops, who resent his strict discipline and their being detailed to agricultural reclamation work in the Balkans, decide to change their allegiance to Carus.

In late September, mutineers evidently kill the emperor in Sirmium, not far from his place of birth, where he is buried.

Carus, on learning of Probus's death, severely punishes the murderers but is himself suspected of having been an accessory to the deed.

He sends a messenger to inform the Senate, without seeking its approval, that he has succeeded to the imperial position.

As Probus had enjoyed respect among the senators, Carus sees to his predecessor's deification.

Without visiting Rome, he next arranges for the elevation of his adult sons Carinus and Numerian to the rank of Caesar (junior emperor).

The cult of Mithra, which recognizes the two powers of good and evil, has becomes popular among Roman legionaries and receives official patronage under Carus.

News soon reaches him that the Sarmatians and the Quadi have crossed the Danube and invaded Pannonia.

Together with Numerian, Carus enters Pannonia and there decisively defeats the barbarians, inflicting enemy casualties of as many as sixteen thousand and taking twenty thousand prisoners.

Carinus is sent by his father to the army of the Rhine.