[2] Mithridates, Vol. II. Einleitung, p. 7.
[3] See the whole legend in Huc’s Chinese Empire, II., p. 187-8.
[4] Auswahl Historischer Stücke aus Hebräischen Schriftstellern, von den zweiten Jahrhundert bis auf die Gegenwart, Berlin, 1840, p. 10. The book is entitled Pirki Rabbi Eliezer, “The chapters of Rabbi Eliezer.” Its date is extremely uncertain. See Moreri Dict. Hist. VII., 361.
[5] See Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 66.
[6] According to the account of Pliny, Dioscurias, a city of Colchis (the present Iskuriah,) was frequented for commercial purposes by no less than three hundred different races; and he adds that a hundred and thirty interpreters were employed there under the Romans (Hist. Nat. VI., 5. Miller’s Ed. II., 176.) The Arabian writers, Ibn Haukal and Musadi, mention seventy-two languages which were spoken at Derbent. Strabo speaks of twenty-six in the Eastern Caucasus alone. See The Tribes of the Caucasus, p. 14, also p. 32.
[7] Dahlmann, p. 47. It would be presumptuous to differ from so ingenious a writer, and so profound a master of the subject which he treats; but I may observe that there are some passages of Herodotus which seem to imply a certain degree at least of acquaintance with Egyptian (for instance II. 79, II. 99), and with the ancient language of Persia, as IX. 100, &c. It must be admitted, however, that a very superficial knowledge of either language would suffice to explain these allusions.
[8] XVII. 17.
[9] This is not Mithridates’s only title to distinction. Perhaps it may not be so generally known that he was equally celebrated for his powers of eating and drinking! Athenæus tells of him that he once offered a prize of a talent to the greatest eater in his dominions. After a full competition the prize was awarded to Mithridates himself.—Athenæus, Deipnosoph., Book X., p. 415.
[10] VIII. 7.
[11] Hist. Nat. VII. 24, and again XXV. 2.