dition subsequently adorning
this fortunate episode in his history with various amusing anecdotes.
According to one account he had a favourite in a youth of marvellous
beauty called Magnes, whom the Magnesians, as an act of defiance to
Gryges, had mutilated till he was past recognition; and it was related
that the king appealed to the fortune of war to avenge the affront. By
a bold stroke he seized the lower quarters of Smyrna, but was unable to
take the citadel,* and while engaged in the struggle with this city, he
entered into a friendly understanding with Ephesus and Miletus.

* Herodotus mentions this war without entering into any
details. We know from Pausanias that the people of Smyrna
defended themselves bravely, and that the poet Mimnermus
composed an elegy on this episode in their history.

Ephesus, situated at the mouth of the river Oayster, was the natural
port of Sardes, the market in which the gold of Lydia, and the
commodities imported from the East by the caravans which traversed the
royal route, might be exchanged for the products of Hellas and of the
countries of the West visited by the Greek mariners. The city was at
this time under the control of a family of rich shipowners, of whom the
head was called Melas: Gryges gave him his daughter in marriage, and
by this union gained free access to the seaboard for himself and his
successors. The reason for his not pushing his advantages further in
this direction is not hard to discover; since the fall of the kingdom
of Phrygia had left his eastern frontier unprotected, the attacks of the
Cimmerians had obliged him to concentrate his forces in the interior,
and though he had always successfully repulsed them, the obstinacy with
which these inroads were renewed year after year prevented him from
further occupying himself with the Greek cities. He had carefully
fortified his vast domains in the basin of the Ehyndakos, he had
reconquered the Troad, and though he had been unable to expel the
barbarians from Adramyttium, he prevented them from having any inland
communications. Miletus rendered vigorous assistance in this work of
consolidating his power, for she was interested in maintaining a buffer
state between herself and the marauders who had already robbed her
of Sinope; and it was for this reason that Gyges, after mercilessly
harassing her at the beginning of his reign, now preferred to enter into
an alliance with her. He had given the Mi