[Footnote 6: According to Phranza, he assiduously studied
the lives and actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine,
and Theodosius. I have read somewhere, that Plutarch's
Lives were translated by his orders into the Turkish
language. If the sultan himself understood Greek, it must
have been for the benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives
are a school of freedom as well as of valor.
Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of
Mahomet's knowledge of languages. Knolles adds, that he
delighted in reading the history of Alexander the Great, and
of Julius Caesar. The former, no doubt, was the Persian
legend, which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and
was popular throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of
Alexander." The founder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome,
according to M. Von Hammer, is altogether unknown in the
East. Mahomet was a great patron of Turkish literature: the
romantic poems of Persia were translated, or imitated, under
his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii. p. 268. - M.]