Gyges of Lydia

So he was this guy who had a mastery of all the languages.

Only the Lydians, that is Gyges, Gugu as he is called, the Gog of the Bible probably, um he speaks a language no one understands and then comes an anecdote about how eventually they figured it out where it's one of these passages where the text is broken so we don't really know exactly what happens which is a pity but but that was difficult but otherwise they're happy to have different people and it's like collecting exotic animals and plants which they do as well this diversity in the same for for these certain people's every sign of of strength and and they they like that And religious as well, there's never an attempt made by the Assyrians to convince people somewhere in some remote province to worship the god Ashur and especially to build a temple for Ashur.

On the contrary, if anyone had ever done that, the Assyrians would have interfered immediately and said, that's not right, that's our god, he's worshipped only in the city of Ashur and that's where he belongs, you are not doing that.

So, there was the idea that you had to acknowledge Ashura's greatness in some way, but that was primarily a political thing.

what remains indeed of archilochus is always tantalizing in its incompleteness of his epigrams for example only three are left here is a free translation of one of them miss high and mighty as soon as she became a wedded wife kicked her bonnet over the moon fortunately however we have preserved for us in herodotus a much longer specimen of archilochus's manner a real milesian tale the story of gyges and The tale is handed down to us in Herodotus' prose, and it is impossible to disentangle the shares contributed by the Ionian poet and the Ionian historian, nor is it necessary.

The story is typical of both.

Kyndales makes the initial mistake of being enamoured of his own wife, and the second mistake of not believing Gyges when he is enlightened on the subject of female modesty.

His folly naturally brings him to a bad end.

the story is interesting but it is especially significant when we compare it with the tale of the same gyges as told by plato there the sensual elements disappear the interest centres on the magic ring and the seduction of the queen and murder of the king form merely the hasty conclusion of the narrative The difference between the two stories is the measure of the difference between the feminist philosopher and the libertine turned woman-hater.

Croesus himself belonged to a dynasty or race of kings called the Myrmidons.

The founder of this line was Gyges, who displaced the dynasty which preceded him and established his own by a revolution effected in a very remarkable manner.

The circumstances were as follows.

The name of the last monarch of the old dynasty, the one, namely, whom Gyges displaced, was Candaules.

Gyges was a household servant in Candaules's family, a sort of slave, in fact, and yet, as such slaves often were in those rude days, a personal favorite and boon companion of his master.

Candaules was a dissolute and unprincipled tyrant.

He had, however, a very beautiful and modest wife, whose name was Nyssia.

Candaules was very proud of the beauty of his queen and was always extolling it, though, as the event proved, he could not have felt for her any true and honest affection.

And from him, he declares, the art of statuary came.

But according to what Pliny writes, this came to Egypt from Gyges the Lydian, who, being by the fire and gazing at his own shadow, suddenly, with some charcoal in his hand, drew his own outline on the wall.

And from that age, for a time, outlines only were wont to be used, with no body of color, as the same Pliny confirms.

Which method was rediscovered with more labor by Philocles the Egyptian, and likewise by Cleanthes and Ardeses of Corinth, and by Telephonus of Sicyon.

And so yeah, a lot of us are like Thrasymachus.

You know, actually, go back to the, the ring of Gyges, right, which comes into, in the...

Well, that's what Tolkien is playing with.

You know-

Would I do it? You know? And like a Thrasymachus would say, "Well, yeah, of course you would." [laughs] "Of course you would." Uh, Machiavelli, yeah, and you should.

It would give you a huge advantage.

Um, so it, is that the anonymity of the internet? It's like we're in the ring of Gyges, is I can do all this stuff and well, who even knows? Now, you know, the internet world, [chuckles] God knows, uh, you can usually be found out in some ways, but at least there's the illusion of anonymity that contributes to this negativity.

Um, so to, again, maybe playing devil's advocate here, um, we could say, I...

But what about that person who can be outwardly honest and reap all the societal benefits from that, be praised, have friends, um, get along very well, but inwardly, they're cutting corners whenever they think they can get away with it and advantage themselves, benefit themselves? Um, nothing that's been said so far seems to provide an argument to that person to not live that way.

And, you know, lo and behold, uh, in, in The Republic, that was il- uh, illustrated very dramatically with the ring of Gyges.

You have this invisibility ring.

If you get that ring, what do you do with it? W- why not become a n- you know, a great person and help those in need? No.

This included Tar and Awa, two Phoenician states, and the Neo-Hittite kingdoms called Tabal and and Hillaku.

He then sent aid to King Gyges of Lydia in his fight against the Cimmerians and then invaded the land of the Manians.

However, the biggest conflict at this time was his war with the Elamites.

Elam was a civilization that settled north of the Persian Gulf, next to Sumer, occupying the western part of modern-day Iran.