Cardinal is the one ordaining that each of us should look upon his own. You have convinced me that your wife is the most beautiful of all women. I beg you, do not ask me to do what is wrong. But Candaules was insistent. Gyges, since he was unable to escape, was ready to do what he was told. Candaules led Gyges to the bedchamber, when he thought it was time for bed, and very soon afterward his wife followed. Gyges watched her as she came in and took off her clothes.
Then, when she went from the chair to the bed and her back was towards him, he stealthily slipped out. But the woman saw him as he left. Had Gyges dallied a moment too long, mesmerized by the beauty that he had beheld? Realizing what her husband had done, the queen did not cry out because she had been disgraced, nor did she even let on that she knew, because it was her intention to exact revenge upon this Candaules, her husband. Indeed, among the Lydians and almost all the other non-Greeks, even for a man to be seen naked brings great shame.
And so, at the time of the outrage, she revealed nothing and kept quiet. As soon as day broke, however, the queen made ready with daggers those among her retinue whom she knew to be the must trustworthy and then summoned Gyges. He came at her bidding, not suspecting that she knew about what had happened the night before.
He was accustomed on previous occasions to visit the Queen, whenever she called. The Troad was conquered, Colophon captured from the Greeks, Smyrna besieged and alliances entered into with Ephesus and Miletus. The armies of Gyges beat back the Cimmerii , who had ravaged Asia Minor.
An embassy was sent to Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh "circa" BC in the hope of obtaining his help against the barbarians. The Assyrians were otherwise engaged, and Gyges turned to Egypt , sending his faithful Carian troops along with Ionia n mercenaries to assist Psammetichus in shaking off the Assyrian yoke "circa" BC.
Gyges later fell in battle against the Cimmerii under Dugdamme called Lygdamis by Strabo i. Gyges was succeeded by his son Ardys. Lydia — This article is about the ancient kingdom in Anatolia.
For other uses, see Lydia disambiguation. Luddu , people who, together with the Phrygians and other Anatolian peoples, infiltrated Anatolia after the decline of the hittite empire at the beginning of the 12th century B. Invited by the king of Lydia secretly to view his beautiful wife naked, Gyges was incited by her to kill the… … Universalium. Croeso Rege, et… … Hofmann J. Lexicon universale. 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.
The murderers were never discovered, so King Ardys issued a curse upon them. 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. 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.
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 besieged [16] and alliances were entered into with Ephesus and Miletus. To the north, the Troad was brought under Lydian control.
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.
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