When Mithridates sent for sixty noblemen of Galatia as friends, he
seemed to carry himself abusively and imperiously towards them, which
they were all mightily provoked at. Poredorix, a man of a robust
body and lofty mind, who was no less than tetrarch of the Tosiopae,
designed to lay hold on Mithridates, seizing him when he should be
determining causes on the bench of judicature in the gymnasium, and
to force him bench and all into the ditch; but by a certain chance
he went not up to the place of judicature that day, but sent for the
Galatians to come home to him to his house. Poredorix encouraged them
all to be of good courage, and when they should be all come together
there, to fall upon him on every side, slay him, and cut his body in
pieces. This conspiracy was not unknown to Mithridates, an intimation
of it being given him; accordingly he delivers up the Galatians one
by one to be slain. But calling to mind a young man among them, who
excelled in comeliness and beauty all whom he knew, he commiserated him
and repented himself and was apparently grieved, supposing him slain
among the first, and also sent his command, that if he were alive he
should remain so. The young man’s name was Bepolitanus. There was a
strange accident befell this man. When he was apprehended, he had on
very gay and rich apparel, which the executioner desired to preserve
clean from being stained with blood; and undressing the young man
leisurely, he saw the king’s messengers running to him and calling
out the name of the youth. So that covetousness, which is the ruin of
many, unexpectedly saved the life of Bepolitanus. But Poredorix being
slain was cast forth unburied, and none of his friends did dare to
come near him; only a certain woman of Pergamus, that was conversant
with him while he lived at Galatia, attempted to cover his corpse and
bury it. But when the guards perceived her, they laid hold on her and
brought her before the king. And it is reported that Mithridates was
much affected at the sight of her, the young maid seeming altogether
harmless, and the more so, as it seemed, because he knew that love was
the reason of her attempt. He gave her leave therefore to take away
the corpse and bury it, and to take grave-clothes and ornaments at his
cost.