phi, which, corrupted by the gold from the Pactolus,
enjoined on the Lydians to recognise Gyges as their king. He married
Toudo, and by thus espousing the widow of the Heraclid sovereign,
obtained some show of right to the crown; but the decision of the oracle
was not universally acceptable, and war broke out, in which Gyges was
victorious, thanks to the bravery of his Carian mercenaries. His
career soon served as the fabric on which the popular imagination was
continually working fresh embroideries. He was reported at the outset to
have been of base extraction, a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised
himself by degrees to the highest posts and had finally supplanted his
patron. Herodotus, following the poet Archilochus of Paros, relates
how the last of the Heraclidas, whom he calls by his private name of
Kandaules, and not his official name of Sadyattes,* forcibly insisted
on exposing to the admiration of Gyges the naked beauty of his wife; the
queen, thus outraged, called upon the favourite to avenge the insult to
her modesty by the blood of her husband, and then bestowed on him her
hand, together with the crown.

* Schubert considers that the names Sadyattes and Kandaules
belong to two distinct persons. Kandaules, according to him,
was probably a second son of Myrsos, who, after the murder
of Sadyattes, disputed the possession of the crown with
Gyges; in this case he was killed in battle by the Carian
commander, Arselis, as related by Plutarch, and Gyges was
not really king till after the death of Kandaules.

Plato made this story the groundwork of a most fantastic tale. Gyges,
according to him, was originally a shepherd, who, after a terrible
storm, noticed a fissure in the ground, into which he crept; there he
discovered an enormous bronze horse, half broken, and in its side the
corpse of a giant with a gold ring on his finger. Chance revealed to him
that this ring rendered its wearer invisible: he set out for the court
in quest of adventures, seduced the queen, murdered the king and seized
his crown, accomplishing all this by virtue of his talisman.*

* This version is curious, because it has preserved for us
one of the earliest examples of a ring which renders its
wearer invisible; it is well known how frequently such a
talisman appears in Oriental tales of a later period.

According to a third legend, his crime and exaltation had been presaged
by a won