cids. After the early death of his father
Mithradates Euergetes, who fell by the hand of an assassin at Sinope,
he had received the title of king about 634, when a boy of eleven
years of age; but the diadem brought to him only trouble and danger.
His guardians, and even as it would seem his own mother called to
take a part in the government by his father's will, conspired against
the boy-king's life. It is said that, in order to escape from the
daggers of his legal protectors, he became of his own accord a
wanderer, and during seven years, changing his resting-place night
after night, a fugitive in his own kingdom, led the homeless life
of a hunter. Thus the boy grew into a powerful man. Although our
accounts regarding him are in substance traceable to written
records of contemporaries, yet the legendary tradition, which is
generated in the east with the rapidity of lightning, early adorned
the mighty king with many of the traits of its Samsons and Rustems.
These traits, however, belong to the character, just as the crown of
clouds belongs to the character of the highest mountain-peaks; the
outlines of the figure appear in both cases only more coloured and
fantastic, not disturbed or essentially altered. The armour, which
fitted the gigantic frame of king Mithradates, excited the wonder of
the Asiatics and still more that of the Italians. As a runner he
overtook the swiftest deer; as a rider he broke in the wild steed,
and was able by changing horses to accomplish 120 miles in a day;
as a charioteer he drove with sixteen in hand, and gained in
competition many a prize--it was dangerous, no doubt, in such sport
to carry off victory from the king. In hunting on horseback, he hit
the game at full gallop and never missed his aim. He challenged
competition at table also--he arranged banqueting matches and carried
off in person the prizes proposed for the most substantial eater and
the hardest drinker--and not less so in the pleasures of the harem,
as was shown among other things by the licentious letters of his Greek
mistresses, which were found among his papers. His intellectual
wants he satisfied by the wildest superstition--the interpretation of
dreams and the Greek mysteries occupied not a few of the king's hours--
and by a rude adoption of Hellenic civilization. He was fond of
Greek art and music; that is to say, he collected precious articles,
rich furniture, old Persian and Greek objects of luxury--his cabine