is impossible to know whether he was still in the public eye by that point. After Emesa, Numerian's staff, including the prefect Aper, reported that Numerian suffered from an inflammation of the eyes and had to travel in a closed coach. When the army reached Bithynia, or Thrace, some of Numerian's soldiers smelled an odor reminiscent of a decaying corpse emanating from the coach. They opened its curtains and found Numerian dead. Gibbon, however, dismisses with derision the report of the stench of Numerian's decay: "Could no aromatics be found in the Imperial household?" After Numerian's death Aper officially broke the news of Numerian's death in Nicomedia (İzmit) in November 284, though Gibbon represents the occurrence of this event at Heraclea, in Thrace, and the discovery, which the prefect attempted to conceal, as due to the forwardness of the soldiery, who forced open the Imperial tent to investigate for themselves the situation of their invisible monarch. Numerian's generals and tribunes called a council for the succession, which met at Chalcedon across the Bosphorus, where they chose as emperor Diocletian, commander of the cavalry arm of the imperial bodyguard, despite Aper's attempts to garner support. The army of the east unanimously saluted their new Augustus. Diocletian accepted the purple imperial vestments and raised his sword to the light of the sun, swearing an oath denying responsibility for Numerian's death. He asserted that Aper had killed Numerian and concealed the deed. In full view of the army, Diocletian then turned and killed Aper, who had been hauled bound before the assembly. Character According to the Historia Augusta, Numerian was a man of considerable literary attainments, remarkably amiable, and known as a great orator and poet. Allegedly, the Senate raised him a statue, inscribed To the most powerful of orators. Family tree Citations References Primary sources Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita Historia Augusta, Life of Carus, Carinus and Numerian Joannes Zonaras, Compendium of History extract: Zonaras: Alexander Severus to Diocletian: 222–284 Secondary sources Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981. Barnes, Timothy D. The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982. Bowman, Alan K. "Diocletian and the First Tetrarchy." In The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XII: The Crisis of Empire, edited by Alan Bowman, Averil Cameron, and Peter Garnsey, 67–89. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Leadbetter, William. "Carus (282–283