There is no way of determining his date of birth, but given that he was at the height of his powers in the later 250s and 260s AD he is likely to have been born by 230 at the latest. Zonaras says that he was a herdsman born in the Roman province of Dacia, north of the Danube. It may be conjectured that, like many Dacians, he enlisted in the Roman Army as a young man and had the good fortune to come to the attention of the Emperor Gallienus.