Mithridanes

Mithridanes is a rich young man whose effort to outdo Nathan, a renowned host, brings him to the edge of murder and then forces him to confront the difference between imitating generosity and possessing it. In Filostrato’s tenth-day story, envy first makes Nathan’s fame seem like an obstacle to Mithridanes’s own reputation; Nathan’s unguarded hospitality eventually changes that rivalry into friendship.

Identity and Ambition

Mithridanes is of noble lineage and has wealth comparable to Nathan’s. When he hears of Nathan’s reputation for receiving travelers, he does not merely admire it: he wants to eclipse it. He has a palace built like Nathan’s and extends extraordinary courtesies to those who pass through the region. His generosity brings him fame in turn, but it remains tied to comparison. He acts to become more renowned than Nathan, making hospitality a contest in which another man’s virtue appears to diminish his own.

The contrast becomes sharp through an incident involving an old woman who asks alms at Mithridanes’s palace. She enters by different gates and receives alms twelve times; when she returns a thirteenth time, Mithridanes recognizes her and remarks on her persistence, though he gives again. She then compares his response with Nathan’s: at Nathan’s palace, which has thirty-two gates, she had asked at each entrance without being recognized and had received alms each time. Her account turns an ordinary act of giving into a measure of attention and constancy. Mithridanes hears it not as instruction but as proof that Nathan remains beyond his reach even in the smallest matter.

From Rivalry to Murder

The old woman’s comparison provokes Mithridanes into furious envy. He concludes that he cannot equal Nathan in great acts of liberality, much less surpass him, and decides that Nathan must be removed. His plan converts a contest over reputation into a direct threat to Nathan’s life: if Nathan’s existence is what keeps Mithridanes from prevailing, murder seems to him the way to clear the field.

Mithridanes sets out secretly with a small company, telling no one of his design. After three days on horseback, he reaches Nathan’s estate near evening. His followers lodge separately, while he remains alone nearby. He encounters Nathan walking without attendants or splendid dress, but does not recognize him. Asking where Nathan lives, Mithridanes receives an offer of guidance from the very man he has come to kill. He also asks not to be seen or identified by Nathan; Nathan agrees, conducts him to the palace, and arranges that the household will keep his identity concealed. Mithridanes is lodged in a fine chamber and entertained with honor, while Nathan personally keeps him company.

The Grove and the Recognition

Nathan’s welcome does not depend on knowing who his guest is, and his concealment is active rather than accidental. He quietly instructs a servant to make sure no one tells Mithridanes that he is Nathan. On the following day, he goes alone to a copse, in accordance with the advice he had given his guest. Mithridanes, carrying a bow and sword, follows him there. Before attacking, he chooses to approach and speak with the old man; seizing the band around Nathan’s head, he tells him that he is dead. Nathan answers that he has deserved it.

The reply brings recognition. Mithridanes sees that the man before him is the host who received him so affectionately, kept his identity secret, and advised him faithfully. His fury gives way to shame. He drops the sword he had drawn, dismounts, and throws himself at Nathan’s feet, acknowledging that Nathan has come to the copse in secret to give him his life. Mithridanes asks Nathan to take whatever vengeance he considers appropriate. The recognition reverses the encounter: Nathan’s apparent vulnerability, which Mithridanes intended to exploit, exposes the generosity that his rival had tried to imitate.

Renunciation and Friendship

Nathan refuses to punish Mithridanes. He says that no one has previously wanted his life and urges the young man to take it while it still has value. The offer is more than a denial of revenge: Nathan is willing to meet Mithridanes’s violent intention without defending himself or bargaining for safety. Mithridanes rejects the offer, saying that he would rather add years to Nathan’s life than take them away.

Nathan then proposes an exchange: Mithridanes could remain in Nathan’s house and bear Nathan’s name, while Nathan went to Mithridanes’s home and lived under his name. Mithridanes refuses even this generous arrangement. He believes that his own actions would diminish Nathan’s renown and will not accept a role that could damage what he cannot reproduce. The two return to Nathan’s palace, where Nathan entertains him for several days and encourages his noble purpose. When Mithridanes leaves with his company, Nathan has made clear that his guest cannot outdo him in liberality.

Narrative Significance

Mithridanes changes not because he wins the contest that first consumed him, but because Nathan’s treatment of him makes the contest impossible to sustain. At the palace, he encounters hospitality without knowing its source; in the copse, he recognizes the same generosity at the point where he expected to find a victim. His shame leads not to retaliation or self-justification but to a refusal of the life Nathan offers him and, finally, to friendship.

The story distinguishes generosity from its outward imitation. Mithridanes can build a similar palace, give repeatedly, and become famous, yet the old woman’s account reveals that his liberality remains bounded by recognition and comparison. Nathan’s response to an unknown guest—and his willingness to surrender his life to the man who threatens it—cannot be reduced to a strategy for reputation. Mithridanes’s final refusal to take Nathan’s name acknowledges that distinction: he can learn from Nathan, but he will not pretend that imitation has made them equal.