The Histories by Herodotus — Book I, Gyges and the kings of Lydia

Croesus was a Lydian by birth, son of Alyattes, and sovereign of all the nations west of the river Halys, which flows from the south between Syria and Paphlagonia and empties into the sea called Euxine. ^6.2This Croesus was the first foreigner whom we know who subjugated some Greeks and took tribute from them, and won the friendship of others: the former being the Ionians, the Aeolians, and the Dorians of Asia, and the latter the Lacedaemonians. ^6.3Before the reign of Croesus, all Greeks were free: for the Cimmerian host which invaded Ionia before his time did not subjugate the cities, but raided and robbed them.

^7.1Now the sovereign power that belonged to the descendants of Heracles fell to the family of Croesus, called the Mermnadae, in the following way. ^7.2Candaules, whom the Greeks call Myrsilus, was the ruler of Sardis; he was descended from Alcaeus, son of Heracles; Agron son of Ninus, son of Belus, son of Alcaeus, was the first Heraclid king of Sardis and Candaules son of Myrsus was the last. ^7.3The kings of this country before Agron were descendants of Lydus, son of Atys, from whom this whole Lydian district got its name; before that it was called the land of the Meii. ^7.4The Heraclidae, descendants of Heracles and a female slave of Iardanus, received the sovereignty from these and held it, because of an oracle; and they ruled for twenty-two generations, or five hundred and five years, son succeeding father, down to Candaules son of Myrsus.

^8.1This Candaules, then, fell in love with his own wife, so much so that he believed her to be by far the most beautiful woman in the world; and believing this, he praised her beauty beyond measure to Gyges son of Dascylus, who was his favorite among his bodyguard; for it was to Gyges that he entrusted all his most important secrets. ^8.2After a little while, Candaules, doomed to misfortune, spoke to Gyges thus: “Gyges, I do not think that you believe what I say about the beauty of my wife; men trust their ears less than their eyes: so you must see her naked.” Gyges protested loudly at this. ^8.3“Master,” he said, “what an unsound suggestion, that I should see my mistress naked! When a woman's clothes come off, she dispenses with her modesty, too. ^8.4Men have long ago made wise rules from which one ought to learn; one of these is that one should mind one's own business. As for me, I believe that your queen is the most beautiful of all women, and I ask you not to ask of me what is lawless.”

^9.1Speaking thus, Gyges resisted: for he was afraid that some evil would come of it for him. But this was Candaules' answer: “Courage, Gyges! Do not be afraid of me, that I say this to test you, or of my wife, that you will have any harm from her. I will arrange it so that she shall never know that you have seen her. ^9.2I will bring you into the chamber where she and I lie and conceal you behind the open door; and after I have entered, my wife too will come to bed. There is a chair standing near the entrance of the room: on this she will lay each article of her clothing as she takes it off, and you will be able to look upon her at your leisure. ^9.3Then, when she moves from the chair to the bed, turning her back on you, be careful she does not see you going out through the doorway.”

^10.1As Gyges could not escape, he consented. Candaules, when he judged it to be time for bed, brought Gyges into the chamber; his wife followed presently, and when she had come in and was laying aside her garments, Gyges saw her; ^10.2when she turned her back upon him to go to bed, he slipped from the room. The woman glimpsed him as he went out, and perceived what her husband had done. But though shamed, she did not cry out or let it be seen that she had perceived anything, for she meant to punish Candaules; ^10.3since among the Lydians and most of the foreign peoples it is felt as a great shame that even a man be seen naked.

^11.1For the present she made no sign and kept quiet. But as soon as it was day, she prepared those of her household whom she saw were most faithful to her, and called Gyges. He, supposing that she knew nothing of what had been done, answered the summons; for he was used to attending the queen whenever she summoned him. ^11.2When Gyges came, the lady addressed him thus: “Now, Gyges, you have two ways before you; decide which you will follow. You must either kill Candaules and take me and the throne of Lydia for your own, or be killed yourself now without more ado; that will prevent you from obeying all Candaules' commands in the future and seeing what you should not see. ^11.3One of you must die: either he, the contriver of this plot, or you, who have outraged all custom by looking on me uncovered.” Gyges stood awhile astonished at this; presently, he begged her not to compel him to such a choice. ^11.4But when he could not deter her, and saw that dire necessity was truly upon him either to kill his master or himself be killed by others, he chose his own life. Then he asked: “Since you force me against my will to kill my master, I would like to know how we are to lay our hands on him.” ^11.5She replied, “You shall come at him from the same place where he made you view me naked: attack him in his sleep.”

^12.1When they had prepared this plot, and night had fallen, Gyges followed the woman into the chamber (for Gyges was not released, nor was there any means of deliverance, but either he or Candaules must die). She gave him a dagger and hid him behind the same door; ^12.2and presently he stole out and killed Candaules as he slept. Thus he made himself master of the king's wife and sovereignty. He is mentioned in the iambic verses of Archilochus of Parus who lived about the same time.

^13.1So he took possession of the sovereign power and was confirmed in it by the Delphic oracle. For when the Lydians took exception to what was done to Candaules, and took up arms, the faction of Gyges came to an agreement with the rest of the people that if the oracle should ordain him king of the Lydians, then he would reign; but if not, then he would return the kingship to the Heraclidae. ^13.2The oracle did so ordain, and Gyges thus became king. However, the Pythian priestess declared that the Heraclidae would have vengeance on Gyges' posterity in the fifth generation; an utterance to which the Lydians and their kings paid no regard until it was fulfilled.

^14.1Thus the Mermnadae robbed the Heraclidae of the sovereignty and took it for themselves. Having gotten it, Gyges sent many offerings to Delphi: there are very many silver offerings of his there; and besides the silver, he dedicated a hoard of gold, among which six golden bowls are the offerings especially worthy of mention. ^14.2These weigh thirty talents and stand in the treasury of the Corinthians; although in truth it is not the treasury of the Corinthian people but of Cypselus son of Eetion. This Gyges then was the first foreigner whom we know who placed offerings at Delphi after the king of Phrygia, Midas son of Gordias. ^14.3For Midas too made an offering: namely, the royal seat on which he sat to give judgment, and a marvellous seat it is. It is set in the same place as the bowls of Gyges. This gold and the silver offered by Gyges is called by the Delphians “Gygian” after its dedicator.

¹⁵As soon as Gyges came to the throne, he too, like others, led an army into the lands of Miletus and Smyrna; and he took the city of Colophon. But as he did nothing else great in his reign of thirty-eight years, I shall say no more of him, and shall speak instead of Ardys son of Gyges, who succeeded him. He took Priene and invaded the country of Miletus; and it was while he was monarch of Sardis that the Cimmerians, driven from their homes by the nomad Scythians, came into Asia, and took Sardis, all but the acropolis.

^16.1Ardys reigned for forty-nine years and was succeeded by his son Sadyattes, who reigned for twelve years; and after Sadyattes came Alyattes, ^16.2who waged war against Deioces' descendant Cyaxares and the Medes, drove the Cimmerians out of Asia, took Smyrna (which was a colony from Colophon), and invaded the lands of Clazomenae. But he did not return from these as he wished, but with great disaster. Of other deeds done by him in his reign, these were the most notable:

^17.1He continued the war against the Milesians which his father had begun. This was how he attacked and besieged Miletus: he sent his army, marching to the sound of pipes and harps and bass and treble flutes, to invade when the crops in the land were ripe; ^17.2and whenever he came to the Milesian territory, he neither demolished nor burnt nor tore the doors off the country dwellings, but let them stand unharmed; but he destroyed the trees and the crops of the land, and so returned to where he came from; ^17.3for as the Milesians had command of the sea, it was of no use for his army to besiege their city. The reason that the Lydian did not destroy the houses was this: that the Milesians might have homes from which to plant and cultivate their land, and that there might be the fruit of their toil for his invading army to lay waste.

^18.1He waged war in this way for eleven years, and in these years two great disasters overtook the Milesians, one at the battle of Limeneion in their own territory, and the other in the valley of the Maeander. ^18.2For six of these eleven years Sadyattes son of Ardys was still ruler of Lydia, and it was he who invaded the lands of Miletus, for it was he who had begun the war; for the following five the war was waged by Sadyattes' son Alyattes, who, as I have indicated before, inherited the war from his father and carried it on vigorously. ^18.3None of the Ionians helped to lighten this war for the Milesians, except the Chians: these lent their aid in return for a similar service done for them; for the Milesians had previously helped the Chians in their war against the Erythraeans.

^19.1In the twelfth year, when the Lydian army was burning the crops, the fire set in the crops, blown by a strong wind, caught the temple of Athena called Athena of Assesos, and the temple burned to the ground. ^19.2For the present no notice was taken of this. But after the army had returned to Sardis, Alyattes fell ill; and, as his sickness lasted longer than it should, he sent to Delphi to inquire of the oracle, either at someone's urging or by his own wish to question the god about his sickness. ^19.3But when the messengers came to Delphi, the Pythian priestess would not answer them before they restored the temple of Athena at Assesos in the Milesian territory, which they had burnt.

²⁰I know this much to be so because the Delphians told me. The Milesians add that Periander son of Cypselus, a close friend of the Thrasybulus who then was sovereign of Miletus, learned what reply the oracle had given to Alyattes, and sent a messenger to tell Thrasybulus so that his friend, forewarned, could make his plans accordingly.

^21.1The Milesians say it happened so. Then, when the Delphic reply was brought to Alyattes, he promptly sent a herald to Miletus, offering to make a truce with Thrasybulus and the Milesians during his rebuilding of the temple. So the envoy went to Miletus. But Thrasybulus, forewarned of the whole matter, and knowing what Alyattes meant to do, devised the following plan: ^21.2he brought together into the marketplace all the food in the city, from private stores and his own, and told the men of Miletus all to drink and celebrate together when he gave the word.

^22.1Thrasybulus did this so that when the herald from Sardis saw a great heap of food piled up, and the citizens celebrating, he would bring word of it to Alyattes: ^22.2and so it happened. The herald saw all this, gave Thrasybulus the message he had been instructed by the Lydian to deliver, and returned to Sardis; and this, as I learn, was the sole reason for the reconciliation. ^22.3For Alyattes had supposed that there was great scarcity in Miletus and that the people were reduced to the last extremity of misery; but now on his herald's return from the town he heard an account contrary to his expectations; ^22.4so presently the Lydians and Milesians ended the war and agreed to be friends and allies, and Alyattes built not one but two temples of Athena at Assesos, and recovered from his illness. That is the story of Alyattes' war against Thrasybulus and the Milesians.

²³Periander, who disclosed the oracle's answer to Thrasybulus, was the son of Cypselus, and sovereign of Corinth. The Corinthians say (and the Lesbians agree) that the most marvellous thing that happened to him in his life was the landing on Taenarus of Arion of Methymna, brought there by a dolphin. This Arion was a lyre-player second to none in that age; he was the first man whom we know to compose and name the dithyramb which he afterwards taught at Corinth.

^24.1They say that this Arion, who spent most of his time with Periander, wished to sail to Italy and Sicily, and that after he had made a lot of money there he wanted to come back to Corinth. ^24.2Trusting none more than the Corinthians, he hired a Corinthian vessel to carry him from Tarentum. But when they were out at sea, the crew plotted to take Arion's money and cast him overboard. Discovering this, he earnestly entreated them, asking for his life and offering them his money. ^24.3But the crew would not listen to him, and told him either to kill himself and so receive burial on land or else to jump into the sea at once. ^24.4Abandoned to this extremity, Arion asked that, since they had made up their minds, they would let him stand on the half-deck in all his regalia and sing; and he promised that after he had sung he would do himself in. ^24.5The men, pleased at the thought of hearing the best singer in the world, drew away toward the waist of the vessel from the stern. Arion, putting on all his regalia and taking his lyre, stood up on the half-deck and sang the “Stirring Song,” and when the song was finished he threw himself into the sea, as he was with all his regalia. ^24.6So the crew sailed away to Corinth; but a dolphin (so the story goes) took Arion on his back and bore him to Taenarus. Landing there, he went to Corinth in his regalia, and when he arrived, he related all that had happened. ^24.7Periander, skeptical, kept him in confinement, letting him go nowhere, and waited for the sailors. When they arrived, they were summoned and asked what news they brought of Arion. While they were saying that he was safe in Italy and that they had left him flourishing at Tarentum, Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the ship; astonished, they could no longer deny what was proved against them. ^24.8This is what the Corinthians and Lesbians say, and there is a little bronze memorial of Arion on Taenarus, the figure of a man riding upon a dolphin.

^25.1Alyattes the Lydian, his war with the Milesians finished, died after a reign of fifty-seven years. ^25.2He was the second of his family to make an offering to Delphi (after recovering from his illness) of a great silver bowl on a stand of welded iron. Among all the offerings at Delphi, this is the most worth seeing, and is the work of Glaucus the Chian, the only one of all men who discovered how to weld iron.