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 cabinet of rings was famous—­he had constantly Greek historians, philosophers, and poets in his train, and proposed prizes at his court-festivals not only for the greatest eaters and drinkers, but also for the merriest jester and the best singer.  Such was the man; the sultan corresponded.  In the east, where the relation between the ruler and the ruled bears the character of natural rather than of moral law, the subject resembles the dog alike in fidelity and in falsehood, the ruler is cruel and distrustful.  In both respects Mithradates has hardly been surpassed.  By his orders there died or pined in perpetual captivity for real or alleged treason his mother, his brother, his sister espoused to him, three of his sons and as many of his daughters.  Still more revolting perhaps is the fact, that among his secret papers were found sentences of death, drawn up beforehand, against several of his most confidential servants.  In like manner it was a genuine trait of the sultan, that he afterwards, for the mere purpose of withdrawing from his enemies the trophies of victory, caused his two Greek wives, his sister and his whole harem to be put to death, and merely left to the women the choice of the mode of dying.  He prosecuted the experimental study of poisons and antidotes as an important branch of the business of government, and tried to inure his body to particular poisons.  He had early learned to look for treason and assassination at the hands of everybody and especially of his nearest relatives, and he had early learned to practise them against everybody and most of all against those nearest to him; of which the necessary consequence—­attested by all his history—­was, that all his undertakings finally miscarried through the perfidy of those whom he trusted.  At the same time we doubtless meet with isolated traits of high-minded justice:  when he punished traitors, he ordinarily spared those who had become involved in the crime simply from their personal relations with the leading culprit; but such fits of equity are not wholly wanting in every barbarous tyrant.  What really distinguishes Mithradates amidst the multitude of similar sultans, is his boundless activity.  He disappeared one fine morning from his palace and remained unheard of for months, so that he was given over as lost; when he returned, he had