Among the orientals, resplendent princes appear often only to be numbered among the disconsolate lovers of Callirhoe and because of their passion to assist in furthering the complications of the plot. Such are Mithridates and Pharnaces. More individualized portraits are painted of King Artaxerxes and Queen Statira. Oriental magnificence is the aura of the Great King’s personality whether he appears presiding in the court-room, or hunting in Tyrian purple with golden dagger and elegant bow and arrow on his caparisoned horse, or riding to war with his great army and his retinue: his queen, her attendants, his eunuchs, all their gold and silver and fine raiment. Yet through this rich setting appears a wise ruler who takes counsel of his advisers in times of crises, listens judiciously to evidence in the court-room, and in war follows the military traditions of Cyrus the Great. But he has his human side: is influenced by wine, loneliness and the dark, and succumbs to Callirhoe’s beauty though he is married to a great and subtle queen. Hoping to win the object of his passion he is not above machinations with his eunuch who acts as his go-between and with optimistic hope of success even has Callirhoe taken along with the queen when he goes to war. Yet when Statira is restored to him by Chaereas’ magnanimity, he welcomes her warmly although her news that Callirhoe is with Chaereas is like “a fresh blow upon an old wound.” He appears most human after hearing Statira’s story of all that happened, for he is filled with varied emotions: wrath at the capture of his dear ones, sorrow at the departure of Chaereas, and final gratitude that Chaereas had ended the possibility of his seeing Callirhoe. Out of his own conflict of emotions, he breaks gently to Dionysius the news of his loss of Callirhoe and calls him away from personal sorrow by giving him higher responsibility in the realm. Artaxerxes is really made to appear in the novel as the Great King.