Gyges (, ; Lydian:  ;  ,  ;  ; reigned c. 680-644 BCE) was the founder of the Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings.
He was a bodyguard of his predecessor Candaules whom he assassinated in order to seize the throne.
His action was approved by the Delphic Oracle and that decision prevented civil war in Lydia.
Once established on the throne, Gyges devoted himself to consolidating his kingdom and making it a military power.
Attestations and etymology
The name  is derived from the Ancient Greek form  () recorded by Graeco-Roman authors.
In addition, the annals of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal refer several times to , king of , to be identified with Gyges, king of the Lydians.
and  are respectively the Akkadian and Greek forms of the Lydian name  (), which means "grandfather".
is derived from a common Proto-Indo-European root from which evolved Hittite  (), Luwian  () and  (), and Lycian  () in the Anatolian languages family, as well as Latin , all meaning "grandfather".
Another derivation for  suggests that it might be a loanword from Carian  (), which was represented in Greek as  (), and was a cognate of the various Anatolian words for "grandfather": Hittite  (), Luwian  () and  (), Milyan  (), and Lycian  ().
If this etymology is accurate, it correlates with the probability of a Carian origin of the Mermnad dynasty.
Attestations of Gyges's name from the period of the Lydian kingdom are found on the legends of coins by his great-grandson Alyattes, reading  (), meaning "I am of Kukaś".
Allegorical accounts of Gyges' rise to power
Authors throughout ancient history have told differing stories of Gyges' rise to power, which considerably vary in detail, but virtually all involve Gyges seizing the throne after killing the king, Candaules, and marrying Candaules' widow.Her name is traditionally known as 'Nyssia', but this is not found in Herodotus.
Apparently this name was supplied by the ancient historian Ptolemy Hephaestion.
The main source for Gyges is Herodotus, whose account may be traced to the poet Archilochus of Paros.
In this, Gyges was a bodyguard of Candaules, who believed his wife to be the most beautiful woman on Earth.
He insisted upon Gyges seeing his wife disrobed and the betrayal so enraged her that she afterwards gave Gyges the choice of murdering her husband and making himself king, or of being put to death himself.
Herodotus goes on to record how Gyges plied the Oracle with numerous gifts, notably six mixing bowls minted of gold extracted from the Pactolus river weighing thirty talents.
The Oracle confirmed Gyges as the rightful king of Lydia and gave moral support to the Lydians in their conflict with the Ionians.
The priestess nevertheless declared that the dynasty of Gyges would fall in the fifth generation.
This prediction was later fulfilled when Gyges' fourth descendant, Croesus, lost the kingdom as a result of attacking the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great.
In Plato's Republic, an ancestor of Gyges was a shepherd who discovered a magic ring of invisibility, by means of which he murdered the king and won the affection of the queen.
Nicolaus of Damascus supplies his own version of the story that is quite different from both Herodotus and Plato.
It involves a multi-generational curse by an old King Ardys of Lydia, because his trusted advisor Dascylus was murdered by Ardys’ son named Sadyattes (or Adyattes).
This Sadyattes was envious of Dascylus’ growing power.
The murderers were never discovered, so King Ardys issued a curse upon them.JOHN R. PORTER, Nicolaus Reads Euphiletus: A Note on the Nachleben of Lysias 1.
Ancient Narrative, Volume 3 (2003), 82–87
Dascylus’ wife, being then pregnant, escapes to Phrygia (her home), and gives birth to a son, also named Dascylus.
Later this Dascylus has a son Gyges who, as a young man arrives to Lydia and is recognized by the king for his outstanding abilities.
He is appointed to the royal bodyguard.
Gyges soon became a favourite of Candaules and was dispatched by him to fetch Tudo, the daughter of Arnossus of Mysia, whom the Lydian king wished to make his queen.
On the way Gyges fell in love with Tudo, who complained to Sadyates of his conduct.
Forewarned that the king intended to punish him with death, Gyges assassinated Candaules in the night and seized the throne.Max Duncker, The History of Antiquity, Volume 3.
R. Bentley & son, 1879.
pp.
419ff According to Plutarch, Gyges seized power with the help of Arselis of Mylasa, the captain of the Lydian bodyguard, whom he had won over to his cause.Debra Hamel, Reading Herodotus: A Guided Tour Through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors, and Crazy Tyrants of 'The History'.
JHU Press, 2012.
p.12 Gift of Gyges to Delphi
Several monarchs of Asia Minor in the Archaic Period, at the height of the influence of the Oracle of Delphi, bolstered their claims to rule through oracles from the Pythia.
Herodotus relates that Gyges ascended the throne following a Delphic oracle, which convinced the Lydians to accept him.
However, the Pythia had also predicted that the revenge of the Heracleidae would fall upon his fifth descendant.
For this oracle Gyges rewarded the oracle with precious ex-votos: six golden kraters were offered to the sanctuary of Apollo.
They weighed thirty talents.
At the time of Herodotus these kraters were displayed in the Treasury of Corinth.
He dedicated other more precious ex-votos, made of gold and silver, which are not, however, mentioned in detail.
Nevertheless, Herodotus seems to have added the detail about the Delphic oracle, and the prediction about the fifth descendant of Gyges who will be revenged by the Heracleidae as a way to account for the fall of King Croesus of Lydia, who belonged to the Mermnadae dynasty.Debra Hamel, Reading Herodotus: A Guided Tour Through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors, and Crazy Tyrants of 'The History'.
JHU Press, 2012.
p.12,13 Reign and death
thumb|Gyges tablet, British Museum Once established on the throne, Gyges devoted himself to consolidating his kingdom and making it a military power, although exactly how far the Lydian kingdom extended under his reign is difficult to ascertain.
He captured Colophon, already largely Lydianized in tastes and customs and Magnesia on the Maeander, the only other Aeolian colony in the largely Ionian southern Aegean coast of Anatolia, and probably also Sipylus, whose successor was to become the city also named Magnesia in later records.
Smyrna was besiegedLater tradition associated the campaign on Smyrna with ill-treatment received by a poet of the city named Magnes who had composed verses celebrating Lydian victories and who was a favorite of Gyges.
and alliances were entered into with Ephesus and Miletus.
To the north, the Troad was brought under Lydian control.
In 665 BCE, Gyges was faced with a war with the Cimmerians, a nomadic people from the Pontic steppe who had invaded the Levant.
Around the same time, according to Neo-Assyrian records, Gyges had a dream where the Assyrian god Aššur appeared to him and told him to seek help from Ashurbanipal and send him tribute.
Gyges therefore contacted the Neo-Assyrian court by sending diplomats to Nineveh, but offered him presents only, rather than tribute, and therefore refused to become a vassal of Assyria.
Gyges soon defeated the Cimmerian invaders without Assyrian help, and he sent Cimmerian soldiers captured while ravaging Lydian lands to Nineveh.
Around 662 BCE, Gyges contacted the king Psamtik I of the city of Sais in Egypt, to whom he sent soldiers.
With the help of these armed forces, Psamtik I united Egypt under his rule after eliminating the eleven other kinglets with whom he had been co-ruling Lower Egypt following Esarhaddon's and Ashurbanipal's invasions.
Interpretations of these actions as an alliance between Lydia and Sais against Assyria, however, are inaccurate; Psamtik I's military activities were directed solely against the other local kinglets of Lower Egypt and not against Assyria, although Ashurbanipal disapproved of Psamtik I's actions since he knew he needed these kinglets' support to maintain Assyrian power in Egypt.
Moreover, not only had the Assyrians risen Sais into preeminence in Egypt after expelling the Saites' Kushite enemies from the country, but the two kings had signed a treaty with each other, and no hostilities between them is recorded.
Thus Psamtik I and Ashurbanipal had remained allies ever since the former had been put in power with Assyrian military support.
Furthermore, the silence of Assyrian sources concerning Psamtik I's expansion imply there was no hostility, whether overt or covert, between Assyria and Sais during Psamtik I's unification of Egypt under his rule.
Likewise, Gyges's military support of Psamtik I was not directed against Assyria and is not mentioned as hostile to Assyria or allied with other countries against Assyria in Assyrian records; the Assyrian disapproval of Gyges's support for Psamtik I was primarily motivated by Gyges's refusal to form an alliance with Assyria and his undertaking of these actions independently of Assyria, which the Assyrians interpreted as an act of arrogance, rather than by the support itself.
Gyges's military support to Psamtik I lasted until 658 BCE, at which point he faced an impending Cimmerian invasion.
The Cimmerians invaded Lydia again in 657 BCE, though not much is known about this attack except that Gyges survived it.
This event is recorded in the Assyrian oracular reports, where it is called a "bad omen" for the "Westland", that is for Lydia.
In 644 BCE, Lydia faced a third attack by the Cimmerians, led by their king Lygdamis.
This time, the Lydians were defeated, Sardis was sacked, and Gyges was killed.
Assyrian records blamed Gyges's defeat and death on his decision to act independently from Assyria by sending troops to Psamtik I, and his ending of diplomacy with Assyria, which the Assyrians interpreted as an act of arrogance.
He was succeeded by his son Ardys, who resumed diplomatic activity with Assyria and would also have to face the Cimmerians.
Gyges's name was later used on the legends of coins by his great-grandson Alyattes, which read  (), meaning "I am of Kukaś".
Some of these coins have a legend  (), which is the abbreviation of the Lydian name of Alyattes,  (, on one side and on the other side have the legend , which in this context meant "I am the son/descendant of " by which Alyattes was declaring his belonging to the dynasty of Gyges.
Mythical Gyges
Like many kings of early antiquity, including Midas of Phrygia and even the more historically documented Alexander the Great, Gyges was subject to mythologizing.
The motives for such stories are many; one possibility is that the myths embody religious beliefs or practices.Richard Seaford, Money and the Early Greek Mind (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 114 ff., limited preview.
In the second book of Plato's philosophical work The Republic, Glaucon recounts the story of the Ring of Gyges to Socrates, using it to illustrate a point about human nature.
Some scholars have suggested that Plato's story was based on a now-lost older version of the myth, while others argue that Plato invented it himself, using elements from Herodotus's story of Gyges.
It told of a man named Gyges who lived in Lydia, an area in modern Turkey.
He was a shepherd for the king of that land.
One day, there was an earthquake while Gyges was out in the fields, and he noticed that a new cave had opened up in a rock face.
When he went in to see what was there, he noticed a gold ring on the finger of a former giant king who had been buried in the cave, in an iron horse with a window in its side.
He took the ring away with him and soon discovered that it allowed the wearer to become invisible.
The next time he went to the palace to give the king a report about his sheep, he put the ring on, seduced the queen, killed the king, and took control of the palace.
In The Republic, Glaucon argues that men are inherently unjust, and are only restrained from unjust behavior by the fetters of law and society.
In Glaucon's view, unlimited power blurs the difference between just and unjust men.
"Suppose there were two such magic rings," he tells Socrates, "and the just [man] put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice.
No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point."
Socrates concludes, however, that a truly just man is not a slave to his appetites, so that the opportunities afforded by the ring would not tempt him to abandon his principles.
Many Bible scholars"F. Delitzsch probably was the first to suggest that Ezekiel took the name Gog from the Lydian king Gyges.
This has later become the most recognized hypothesis among scholars, though considerable doubt and many objections have been raised against this identification.....
Detailed references are found in Weicker's article on Gyges, Weiker 1912.
CF.
also Smith, K. F. 1902; and Reinhardt 1960: 139-43 about Gyges, and pp.
175-183 about 'Gyges un sein Ring'.
For an updated account, cf. Rollig 1987."
Gog and Magog: Ezekiel 38-39 as Pre-text for Revelation 19,17-21 and 20,7-10, Volume 135 of 2], [Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, ISSN 0340-9570 Wissunt Zum Neun Testament Ser.
Ii, 135, see https://books.google.com/books?id=vettpBoVOX4C.
believe that Gyges of Lydia was the Biblical figure of Gog, ruler of Magog, who is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation.
Influence on modern works
Théophile Gautier wrote a story entitled "Le roi Candaule" (published in 1844), which was translated by Lafcadio Hearn.
"Tsar Kandavl" or "Le Roi Candaule" is a grand ballet with choreography by Marius Petipa, and music by Cesare Pugni, with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, based on the Herodotus version.
It was first presented by the Imperial Ballet in  St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1868, with Henriette D'or as Queen Nisia, Felix Kschessinsky as King Candaules/Tsar Candavl, Lev Ivanov as Gyges and Klavdia Kantsyreva as Claytia.
"Le Roi Candaule" is also the title of a comedy by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, loosely based on the ancient tale and presenting light sketches of Parisian life in the 1860s and 1870s.
German playwright Friedrich Hebbel's 1856 tragedy Gyges und sein Ring ("Gyges and his Ring").
In the novel Temporary Kings, penultimate in Anthony Powell's 12-volume A Dance to the Music of Time, Candaules' exhibiting of his naked wife to Gyges and her discovery of it feature on a ceiling painting, attributed to Tiepolo, in a Venetian palace.
The story counterpoints themes of voyeurism and death in Powell's narrative.
In the novel The English Patient, and the film based on it, Count Almásy (himself a disciple of Herodotus), falls in love with a married woman (Katherine Clifton) as she tells Herodotus' version of the Gyges story around a campfire.
The story is harbinger of their own tragic path.
In the novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons, one of the four evil constructs created by the Core and named by Councillor Albedo is called Gyges.
One of the chapters in Robertson Davies' novel Fifth Business is called "Gyges and King Candaules".
The protagonist, scholar Dunstan Ramsay; his lifelong "friend and enemy", the tycoon Percy "Boy" Staunton; and Staunton's wife Leola who had been Ramsay's childhood sweetheart are throughout the book  compared with, respectively, Gyges, King Candaules and the Queen of Lydia.
In particular, in one scene where Staunton insists upon showing Ramsay nude photos of his wife, Ramsay tells him the ancient story as a warning (which Staunton ignores).
In 1990 Frederic Raphael published The Hidden I, A Myth Revised, a retelling of the story of Lydia, King Candaules and Gyges.The Hidden I, A Myth Revised, bookfever.com
J. R. R. Tolkien (writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) may have been influenced by Plato's accounts of King Gyges.
Notes
Sources
External links
Livius.org: Gyges of Lydia
