Arbaces is presented as a mixed character, brave and formidable in battle, but boastful and somewhat vulgar. His character is explained by the trick of his birth: he cannot behave with the nobility of a king, because he isn't one by "blood." The comic relief in the play is provided by the cowardly Bessus and his cronies; their subplot turns on the customs of honorable duelling — and their comical violation. (Bessus was a well-known comic creation; Queen Henrietta Maria refers to Bessus in a 25 February 1643 letter to her husband, Charles I.)