Of all the
concubines of Mithridates who were brought to him, he knew not one,
but sent all back to their parents and kin; for the greater part were
the daughters and wives of generals and princes. Stratonike,[275] who
was in the greatest repute and guarded the richest of the forts, was,
it is said, the daughter of a harp-player, who was not rich and was an
old man; and she made so sudden a conquest of Mithridates over his
wine by her playing, that he kept the woman and went to bed with her,
but sent away the old man much annoyed at not having been even civilly
spoken to by the king. In the morning, however, when he got up and saw
in his house tables loaded with silver and golden cups, and a great
train of attendants, with eunuchs and boys bringing to him costly
garments, and a horse standing before the door equipped like those
that carried the king's friends, thinking that this was all mockery
and a joke he made an attempt to escape through the door. But when the
slaves laid hold of him and told him that the king had made him a
present of the large substance of a rich man who had just died, and
that this was but a small foretaste and sample of other valuables and
possessions that were to come, after this explanation hardly convinced
he took the purple dress, and leaping on the horse rode through the
city exclaiming, "All this is mine." To those who laughed at him he
said, this was nothing strange, but it was rather strange that he did
not pelt with stones those who came in his way, being mad with
delight.
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