Decius was born in Pannonia in the Balkans, on the northeastern frontier of the empire, early in the third century. Within the same decade, at the other end of the empire, in the province of Africa, near Carthage, the great city in North Africa, second only to Rome in the western Mediterranean, a wealthy landholding Roman family celebrated the birth of a son. His name was Thascius Caecilianus Cyprianus. Cyprian and Decius would never meet, but Decius’s reign as emperor would be the fateful turning point in Cyprian’s life.
