In a dream he saw Mithradates reaping a golden harvest, and thereupon planned to kill him. He told Demetrius his son, and bound him by an oath to silence. But Demetrius took Mithridates to walk with him beside the sea, and with the butt of his spear wrote in the sand, ‘Flee, Mithridates.’ And Mithridates, understanding the purport, fled to Pontus and reigned there until his end. 1
1 Plutarch tells the story at length in his Life of Demetrius, chap. iv. (890 C); cf. also Appian, Roman History, Mithridatic Wars, 9. Mithridates became the founder of the line of Pontic kings, which lasted until 63 B.C. when Mithridates VI. was conquered by Pompey.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
