The Persians' king. "They praise him and they wonder at his merit -- not [only] the Persians, but even some of the Romans -- since (they say) he was a lover of literature and came to mastery of our philosophy, when the Greek writings had been translated for him into the Persian language by someone. And therefore they say that he gulped down all of the Stageirite[1] even more eagerly than the Paeanian did the son of Oloros,[2] and was totally obsessed with the teachings of Plato the son of Ariston[3] and nor could the Timaeus[4] elude him, even though it is very much embellished with geometrical speculation and investigates the movements of nature, and neither could the Phaedo[5] or the Gorgias[6] [elude him], nor indeed did any other of the sophisticated and more difficult dialogues, like the Parmenides.[7] But I," Agathias says, "would never have believed that he had such an excellent education and this consummate attainment. For how would it have been possible for that purity of ancient words, free and suited and completely fit to the nature of things to have been preserved in a unrefined and discordant language? How could a man who was exalted[8] from childhood by royal pomp and a great deal of flattery, who had a very barbaric[9] lifestyle, who was always on the lookout for wars and conspiracies, how could a man who was set on such a course of life [be supposed] to derive enjoyment from and be trained in these teachings? Therefore, if one should praise him, although he was a king and a Persian, concerned with so many peoples and matters, because he nevertheless desired to enjoy literature somehow or other and to be exalted in his reputation for these things,[10] then even I myself would praise the man and consider him greater than the other barbarians. But as many as go too far in calling him 'wise' and all but superior to those who ever practiced philosophy anywhere, [saying] that he knew the principles and causes of every art and discipline ... those men would be caught straying far from the truth and following only the rumour of the masses."