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 wandered incognito through all western Asia and reconnoitred everywhere the country and the people.

In like manner he was not only in general a man of fluent speech, but he administered justice to each of the twenty-two nations over which he ruled in its own language without needing an interpreter--a trait significant of the versatile ruler of the many-tongued east.

His whole activity as a ruler bears the same character.

So far as we know (for our authorities are unfortunately altogether silent as to his internal administration) his energies, like those of every other sultan, were spent in collecting treasures, in assembling armies--which were usually, in his earlier years at least, led against the enemy not by the king in person, but by some Greek -condottiere---in efforts to add new satrapies to the old.