Greece & Rome, Vol. 55, No. 2, © The Classical Association, 2008. All rights reserved

doi:

RHETORIC AND THE RING

R H E TO R I C A N D T H E R I N G : H E R O D OT U S

A N D P L ATO O N T H E S TO RY O F G Y G E S A S A

P O L I T I C A L LY E X P E D I E N T TA L E *

By

GABRIEL DANZIG

The story of Gyges has come down to us in several versions. These
include a summary of a version recorded by Nicholas of Damascus,
which may descend ultimately from the Lydian historian Xanthos;

1

a

fragment of a dramatic version by an unknown Greek author;

2

a brief

description by Plutarch;

3

Justin’s summary of a version by Pompeius

Trogus;

4

and a version by Ptolemy Hephaestion of Alexandria,

summarized by Photius.

5

But the most famous and oldest fully extant

versions of the story are those told by Herodotus and Plato.

According to Herodotus (Histories, 1.8–14), Gyges was a member

of the royal guard and a close friend and confidant of the king of
Lydia. Candaules, the king, became infatuated with his own wife, and
spoke incessantly to Gyges in praise of his wife’s beauty, ultimately
insisting that Gyges see her naked to judge for himself. Although
Gyges objected strenuously to this unreasonable request, the king
overruled his objections and forced him to see what was not his to see.
When the queen became aware of this offense to her dignity, she
forced Gyges to kill her husband and replace him as both husband

Greece & Rome, Vol. 55, No. 2, © The Classical Association, 2008. All rights reserved
doi:

10.1017/S001738350800051X

*An earlier version of this paper was read on 31 May 2007 at a meeting of the Israel Society

for the Promotion of Classical Studies, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I wish to thank
Joseph Geiger, Debbie Gera, Menahem Luz, and Donna Shalev for their helpful comments on
that occasion. Similarly, I wish to thank two anonymous readers for Greece & Rome, and its
editors for the valuable improvements they suggested.

1

The summary is found in Constantinus Porphyrogennetos. See F. Jacoby, FGrHist, 90 F

47. This version offers an amalgam of elements appearing in the versions we have in Plato and
Herodotus, without the improbable magical elements and without the equally improbably
portrait of Gyges’ motivations found in Herodotus. For an English translation see K. F. Smith,
‘The Tale of Gyges and the King of Lydia’, American Journal of Philology 23 (1902), 261–82,
264–5.

2

See E. Lobel, ‘A Greek Historical Drama’, Proceedings of the British Academy 35 (1949),

207–16; D. L. Page, A New Chapter in the History of Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1951);
A. Lesky, ‘Das Hellenistische Gyges drama’, Hermes 81 (1953), 1–10; E. Bickel, ‘Rekon-
struktions-Versuch einer hellenistischen Gyges-Nysia-Tragödie’, RhM 100 (1957), 141–152.

3

Quaestiones Graecae, 301f–302a. In Plutarch’s brief account, Gyges revolts from Candaules,

help is brought by Arselis of Myrsala, and Candaules is slain together with his assistant, ‘ton
hetairon’.

4

1.7.14–19.

5

Photius, Bibl.

,

150 b.

and king. In the wake of these events, a violent conflict erupted
between the people of Lydia and Gyges’ own forces. The conflict was
resolved by an appeal to the oracle in Delphi, after which Gyges sent
rich golden offerings to Delphi.

In Plato we have a very different story (Republic 2: 359b6–360b1).

Here Gyges (or his ancestor) is no friend of the king but a simple
shepherd in the king’s employment. In the wake of an earthquake, he
discovers an underground cavern full of marvels. On the hand of a
large dead man lying inside a hollow bronze horse he finds a magical
ring capable of making its owner invisible. He uses this ring to enter
the king’s palace, seduce the queen, and, together with her, kill the
king and take the throne.

It is usually thought that these two stories are based on older

sources, either two different versions of the story of Gyges or, as K. F.
Smith argued, one single longer version of the story, which served as
the source for both authors.

6

A third possibility has also been raised:

Andrew Laird has recently argued that Plato largely invented his
version of the story, inspired primarily by his reading of Herodotus’
version.

7

In this paper, I will explore further the relationship between

the two texts. Taking Laird’s position as a starting point, I will argue
that Plato’s version of the story makes sense as a reaction to Herod-
otus’ story only if he interpreted it as the kind of story a usurper
would tell in order to justify his deeds. In order to test this reading of
the story, I will take a close look at the Herodotean story to see
whether it lends itself to interpretation as a politically expedient tale,
and whether or not Herodotus himself viewed it in this way. Then I
will turn to Plato’s version to consider more closely what sense it
makes as a reaction to Herodotus.

Preliminary considerations

The prospect of separating fact from fiction in Herodotus’ Histories
always has and presumably always will tantalize students of this
earliest extant text of a Greek historian. While a student of history
asks first ‘What if anything of this actually occurred?’, the student of
historiography may be inclined to begin with other questions: ‘What
of this did Herodotus hear from others, and what did he invent on his

170

RHETORIC AND THE RING

6

See Smith (n. 1).

7

‘Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato’s

Republic’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001), 12–29.

own? What did he view as true in it and what did he recognize as
false?’ Answering these questions will not answer the former, since
what Herodotus heard from others was not necessarily true, and what
he invented on his own was not necessarily false. Similarly, the fact
that he viewed something as true does not mean that it was true. But
answering these questions would be of great value for understanding
how he composed his history and how he evaluated historical mat-
erials. Knowing how he distinguished truth from fiction in the
material he found, and what role this distinction played in his work,
would go a long way towards helping us to evaluate both his historical
judgement and his aims in the composition.

Because of our lack of knowledge of the materials Herodotus found

before him, we are forced to rely on assumptions that are only prob-
able in approaching these questions. It seems unlikely, for example,
that Herodotus invented the stories he tells from thin air; and there-
fore we assume that he reproduces in most cases at least the broad
outlines of what he heard. Thus, Herodotus must have heard a story
about a Gyges (or perhaps someone else) who was forced by a king to
violate his queen’s modesty, was subsequently forced to kill the king,
and ended up as the new ruler.

A second assumption: while the bare outlines of the story were in

all likelihood part of the material he received, Herodotus is himself
responsible for giving the stories their present form. An undeniable
example of Herodotus’ personal contribution to the story of Gyges is
the statement ‘for it was necessary that Candaules fare poorly’ (1.8.2),
an authorial comment that reflects a vision of human ups and downs
that underlies much of the Histories. There are other elements as well
that clearly show Herodotus’ personal stamp. Since, however, we
rarely know where to draw the line between elements that Herodotus
found in his material and elements that he added on his own, we can
only ascribe to him those aspects of the narrative that seem most obvi-
ously attributable to him: authorial comments, descriptions of the
private speeches and thoughts of individuals, and elements of Persian
stories that seem to reflect Greek realities. The ultimate origin of
other aspects of the story can only be treated as uncertain.

One aspect of the story that will occupy us at length is its implied

historical verisimilitude. Although the connection of this story to any
historical event remains speculative, the story of Gyges, like most
stories in Herodotus, does have historical pretensions. Its implicit or
explicit claims to historicity invite the reader to wonder about its rela-
tionship to real events, and about its author’s view of that relationship.

RHETORIC AND THE RING

171

In discussing this question, it will therefore be necessary to speak of a
fictional historical reality, one that is presumed by the story but that
does not necessarily exist anywhere outside the conventions of fiction.
As we shall see, Herodotus does not make the task easy: he presents a
narrative that seems both plausible and implausible, both realistic and
unrealistic, at the same time.

Innocent Gyges

Herodotus is often praised for the historical judgement he reveals in
his treatment of the story of Gyges, on the grounds that he wisely
rejected the magical and folkloristic elements that appear in Plato’s
version: an earthquake, an underground chamber, a large dead man
in a bronze horse, and a magic invisibility ring.

8

But, while Herod-

otus’ version does eschew magic, it also diverges from Plato’s account
and from modern historical reconstructions in another way, no less
significant for our judgement of his historical sense. While Plato and
most other sources present Gyges as a usurper whose personal ambi-
tion led him to seduce the queen and murder the king, Herodotus
presents him as an innocent man, with no interest in kingly rule, who
was forced to assume it by pressure of circumstance.

9

Even if he was

not acquainted with any other version of the story, Herodotus’ accep-
tance of this version of the story without reservation raises the
question of his historical judgement.

10

Was he so naïve about political

life as to accept as true a version of the Gyges story that presents him
as an innocent and reluctant regicide?

If we consider the story that Herodotus presents in its bare essen-

tials, it becomes clear that it is not a merely literary or folkloristic
creation, but an example of the kind of story used by usurpers to
justify claims to the throne.

11

The bare elements of the story, as well

172

RHETORIC AND THE RING

8

See Smith (n. 1), 280; H. Erbse, ‘Tradition und Form im Werke Herodots’, Gymnasium

68 (1961), 253–7; D. Asheri, Erodoto Le Storie, trans. V. Antelami (Milan, 1988), i.269;
A. Griffiths, ‘Stories and Storytelling in the Histories’, in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds.), The
Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge, 2006), 140. This view assumes, of course, both
that Herodotus had heard something like Plato’s version and that he made his selection based on
considerations of verisimilitude, neither of which has been shown to be the case.

9

This is pointed out nicely by S. Flory, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus (Detroit, MI, 1987)

31–2.

10

I have not found an historian who doubts that the historical Gyges was motivated by

ambition. For a reconstruction of his career, see J. Wells, ‘Who was Gyges?’, in Studies in
Herodotus (Oxford, 1923).

11

Surprisingly enough, I have not found any discussion of this question in the literature on

Gyges. W. W. How and J. Wells (A Commentary on Herodotus [Oxford, rev. 1928], 58) simply
‘reject’ the story of Gyges, without any attempt to explain its origin.

as many of its colourful details, serve to deny a more likely but less
flattering scenario, suggested in places by the text itself, in which
Gyges seduced the queen and murdered the king on his own initiative
in order to usurp the throne, just as he does in other versions of the
story. By showing us how Gyges was forced to violate the queen’s
modesty and then as a consequence to kill the king himself, the story
not only presents the usurper as an innocent victim but also presents
the dead king as the party who is ultimately most deserving of blame.
It was the dead king who became infatuated with his own wife’s
beauty (1.8.1), disregarded the well-established customs of Lydian
propriety to which Gyges attempted to recall him, and insisted on
exposing his wife to his friend.

12

In contrast to the king, Gyges

actively struggled at every point to behave in accordance with reason,
moderation, and justice. He argued against the king’s plan to show his
wife naked and against the queen’s plan to kill the king, relenting only
when faced with overbearing pressure, and agreeing to kill the king
only when he saw that the alternative was death.

13

In short, no one

was ever less responsible for murdering a king and assuming the
crown than Herodotus’ Gyges. The queen may be a somewhat more
aggressive figure than Gyges; but ultimately she too is a victim of the
king’s misbehaviour. Her act of revenge, forcing Gyges to kill the king,
is a reaction to the king’s mistreatment and is presented as a justifi-
able one: her aim is both to avenge her honour and to prevent its
future violation (1.11.2). In these ways, the story serves to exculpate
Gyges from the guilt associated with regicide, and, indeed, to devolve
the responsibility onto the dead man.

P. Schubert presents an implicit challenge to this view when he

argues that, even on the surface, Gyges is not presented in such a
positive light. He points out that Gyges is forced twice to choose
between justice and self-interest, and in both cases chooses self-
interest.

14

One may add that Gyges is ultimately punished for his

crimes – not in his own person but in the loss of rule by his fifth-
generation descendant. But neither of these facts casts serious blame

RHETORIC AND THE RING

173

12

Herodotus comments that, by doing so, Candaules was fulfilling the demand that no

dynasty should last forever; but, while this places the events within a larger theological frame-
work, it does not reduce the blame or justify his actions.

13

This element is also found in the Xanthos/Nicholas/Porphyrogennetos version: ‘Thinking

that, under the circumstances, it was better to slay Sadyattes than be slain by him . . . Gyges
broke into the palace, sword in hand and entering the chamber, the door of which was opened
for him by the maid, killed Sadyattes in his sleep’ (trans. in Smith [n. 1], 264).

14

‘L’anneau de Gygès: Réponse de Platon à Hérodote’, L’Antiquité Classique 66 (1997),

257. S. Flory argues this point merely by pointing to other Herodotean heroes who risked death
(Flory, [n. 9], 37–8). But nothing prevents admiring them while excusing Gyges.

on Gyges. The term hairesis (choice), which appears twice as a noun
and once as a verb (1.11.2,3,4), does not signify a specifically moral
choice for which Gyges is to be called to account but a practical
choice between two alternatives. And Herodotus excuses Gyges’
decision, emphasizing that he had no alternative, or that the only
alternative was death. In explaining why Gyges agreed to the king’s
suggestion, Herodotus says that he was ‘unable to escape’ (1.10.1) the
king’s demand. In describing his decision to kill the king, Herodotus
says merely that ‘Gyges chose that he himself should live’ (1.11.4),
surely an understandable and forgivable motive. Gyges believes that
the queen forces him to kill the king against his will, as though
choosing to die was not a serious option (1.11.4). Herodotus goes on
to say that ‘Gyges was not able to free himself, and he had no escape
at all, but either he had to die or Candaules’ (1.12.1). This is surely
the most favourable way that he could have described the decision to
murder the king. While for Plato’s Socrates death may be preferable
to injustice (see Apology and Crito), neither Herodotus nor Herodotus’
Gyges seem to think that choosing to die is a real option at all. The
fact that Gyges’ descendant is punished may be attributed to the
instability of human things, or to the fact that the gods punish even
those who could not reasonably have avoided their crimes.

15

By showing that the king’s murderer and his female accomplice

acted in good faith, while the real culprit was the murdered king
himself, the story serves as an exculpatory narrative on behalf of the
usurpers. If Herodotus did not invent the story out of thin air, the
story he heard may well have originated in some actual political
context, in which a usurper (whether named Gyges or not) used it to
justify his deeds and maintain his rule. It is also possible, though
hardly likely, that Herodotus has invented the story altogether; if so,
he has simply imagined the kind of thing that a usurper would say.
Either way, the story invites its readers to reflect on the contrast
between the surface narrative and the more historically plausible
circumstances in which someone would usurp a throne. When taken
together, these two levels of interpretation enable the reader to recog-
nize the story as belonging to the genre of exculpatory political
deception.

16

174

RHETORIC AND THE RING

15

For a similar view, see J. Griffin, ‘Herodotus and Tragedy’, in Dewald and Marincola

(n. 8), 51.

16

Although this may seem patently obvious, it has not, as far as I know, been noticed by

commentators.

Herodotus’ understanding of the story

In contrast to the reports that he offered earlier concerning the rape
of Greek and barbarian women prior to the Trojan war, Herodotus
records the story of Gyges in his own narrative voice without any
reservations, and without mentioning any alternative reports, thus
creating the impression that he views the story as the plain truth. But
there is a distinction between the manner of presentation and the
private judgement of an author. The unqualified report would serve as
a reflection of Herodotus’ credulity only if we knew that his selection
of stories was guided by his belief in their historicity. It is true that, in
some places, Herodotus indicates that he has selected the most
reasonable versions of an event (for example, 1.95.1, 1.214.5). But he
does not make any statement about the reliability of the story of
Gyges; and in other places he says that he does not necessarily believe
that the stories that he tells are true (7.152; 2.123). Clearly, then, we
cannot assume that Herodotus believes the story simply because he
records it.

Why then has he included it? Undoubtedly, Herodotus recognized

that disrobing a beautiful woman is an excellent way to begin a
literary endeavour.

17

But there are deeper reasons as well. As many

scholars have seen, the story contains a variety of important motifs
found in Herodotus’ work as a whole. It obviously bears an important
relationship to the great theme of the role of women in historical
causation, illustrated in the Persian aitia stories, in the story of
Persia’s war on Egypt (3.1–3), and perhaps most peculiarly of all in
the story of the methods used to induce a male horse to proclaim
Cyrus king (3.85–7). As D. Lateiner points out, ‘Disregard for that
nearly universal rule of private property, the exclusive enjoyment of a
wife by her husband, opens and closes the Histories.’

18

R. Osborn

points to the connection between this story and other stories in which
men parade women before other men.

19

J. Gould, describes the story

as dealing with ‘the abnormal succession of male power through viola-
tion of the boundaries that separate women from unrelated men’.

20

RHETORIC AND THE RING

175

17

Note the way that Herodotus describes her removing her clothes and Gyges’ view of her

back (1.10.2). Through these descriptions, Herodotus involves the reader in Gyges’ own trans-
gression.

18

The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto, 1989), 141.

19

‘The Paeonians (5.11–16)’, in E. Irwin and E. Greenwood (eds.), Reading Herodotus. A

Study of the logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge, 2007), 92.

20

‘Law, Custom, and Myth: Women in Classical Athens’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 100

(1980), 53–4.

S. Flory argues that the story is presented as a deliberate contrast in
style and substance to the Persian aitia stories with which Herodotus
began.

21

The story also concerns the important theme of the desires and

transgressions of kings and rulers (see 1.9.1; 1.11.3).

22

In Herodotus’

works, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Cambyses, Pisistratus, Periander,
Cleomenes, and others display their monarchic characters by trans-
gressing accepted norms and being punished accordingly. The story
of Gyges provides an interesting variation on this pattern. On the one
hand, it conforms to the general pattern, in that Candaules commits
serious transgressions against established norms and is punished. But
Candaules also causes his friend Gyges to transgress. It is as though
the king, and later the queen, slough off some of their own charac-
teristically royal transgressive impulses onto Gyges. Because he
participates in these transgressions, albeit unwillingly, it is appropriate
both that he becomes a king himself and also that his descendent is
ultimately punished.

23

The presence of these themes is enough to justify Herodotus’ inclu-

sion of the story, regardless of his view of its historicity. But there is
another theme at work here as well – the theme of the politically expe-
dient tale. This theme is less prominent than the others: Herodotus
never says explicitly that the story he presents is an example of such a
tale. And, indeed, one may seriously question whether or not
Herodotus would have recognized or believed that it was. As I will try
to show, however, there is good reason to think that he did.

One way to see this is by comparing the story of Gyges with

176

RHETORIC AND THE RING

21

Flory (n. 9), 23–38. The story also contains a reference to the important topos of the rela-

tive merits of visual and oral evidence (1.8.2; see Irwin and Greenwood [n. 19], 8, n. 14).
Characteristically, however, the topos is abused by the king, who uses it to compel Gyges to view
what is not his to view.

22

See F. Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus. The Representation of the Other in the Writing of

History, trans. J. Lloyd (Berkeley, CA, 1988), esp. 330–9.

23

I am grateful to an anonymous reader for Greece & Rome for reminding me of the central-

ity of this theme in the Gyges story, and for pointing out that the emphasis on the violation of
the nomos by Candaules seems at odds with my own portrait of the story as implying Gyges’
own culpability. While one could explain references to the king’s violation of nomos as serving
Gyges’ own self-exculpatory effort, one could also, perhaps more easily, assimilate them to the
broad pattern of royal transgression in Herodotus and interpret the story simply as a case of
Candaules’ transgression. But we do not necessarily need to choose between these two interpre-
tations, both of which are available to the reader. While Candaules’ transgressions would indeed
be illusory if the story is a politically motivated fabrication, they would still serve to introduce a
literary theme that resonates throughout the Histories. There is no reason why a fabrication may
not contain important and realistic themes: the Greek propensity for combining truth and fiction
in unlikely ways can be attested by any reader of Homer’s Odyssey or Sophocles’ Philoctetes or
Aias (on the last, see especially the interpretation of K. Reinhardt in Sophocles, trans. H. and
D. Harvey [Oxford, 1979]).

another Herodotean story about the founding of a dynasty, namely
the story of Deioces in Media. In the story of Deioces, we find
assumptions about human motivations that are incompatible with the
presentation of Gyges as an innocent and unambitious man, and we
also find a portrait of political intrigue in which the maintaining of
false appearances by the politically ambitious is recognized as crucial
to political success. The connection between these two stories is indi-
cated not only by the fact that each concerns the founding of a
dynasty but also by the fact that each begins with someone falling in
love. While Candaules fell in love with his own wife and lost a
kingdom, Deioces fell in love with tyranny and won a kingdom
(1.96.2; see Hartog [n. 22], 330, Flory [n. 9], 123). More important
than the contrast between Candaules and Deioces, however, is the
contrast between the two winners in the stories, Gyges and Deioces.
While Herodotus presents Gyges as an ostensibly innocent man,
despite the very suspicious circumstances of his rise to the throne, he
presents Deioces as an ambitious manipulator, even though he
appears to gain power by the most admirable behaviour.

24

Not only is

Deioces chosen as king because of his justice, his virtues are fully
confirmed by his subsequent career: after being chosen as king and
equipping himself with a palace, with guards, and with efficient spies,
he behaves impeccably for his entire reign (1.98–100). Herodotus
presents no evidence to support his assertion that Deioces laid careful
plans of deception to gain the kingship. Why then does he assume that
Deioces’ seemingly just behaviour was an act he put on because he
had fallen in love with tyrannis, wished to be king, and longed to rule
(1.96.2), if not because any other explanation seems to him implau-
sible? Why does he say that the decision to select a king for Media was
promoted by Deioces’ own friends? In this case at least we cannot
blame any source material, for Herodotus says himself that this is his
own surmise (1.97.2).

As How and Wells have noted, those features of the story that most

emphasize Deioces’ own ambition appear to be original with Herod-
otus, reflecting the typical pattern of the rise of the Greek tyrant:
Herodotus ‘gives true oriental colour in laying stress on the import-
ance of Deioces as a judge; but the other details, e.g., the tyrant’s
“friends” (97.2), the body-guard (98.2), the spies (100.2) are parts of
the ordinary Greek “tyrant’s progress”.’

25

These details are precisely

RHETORIC AND THE RING

177

24

He is ‘an especially insidious upstart’, in the judgement of R. V. Munson, Telling Wonders.

Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of Herodotus (Ann Arbor, MI, 2001), 63.

25

How and Wells (n. 11), 104.

the ones that show Deioces to be a schemer rather than a simple, right-
eous man. If Herodotus was responsible for introducing them, it
appears that he had a major hand in transforming Deioces into a
tyrannical figure.

But why did he do so? Since he has offered no hard evidence to

suggest that Deioces was anything other than a righteous man,
Herodotus’ interpretation of the story can only be based on his own
personal beliefs about human motivation and political behaviour. In
Herodotus’ view, it is impossible to imagine that anyone could win the
kingship without plotting to do so, either because no one is as inno-
cent as Deioces appears to be or because no one so innocent would
succeed in gaining political power. Throughout the Histories, Herod-
otus presents political triumph as a result of trickery. Cyrus became
king by means of his own and Harpagus’ trickery; Darius became king
by virtue of the trickery of his groom; Peisistratus became tyrant of
Athens by means of trickery; Themistocles saved Greece with an act
of trickery that also served his personal ambition. In the light of this
widespread pattern, the story of Gyges stands out for its implausible
assertion of the innocence of the new king. It is all the more implau-
sible since, on the bare facts of the case, Gyges alone achieved
kingship through murder and adultery.

Herodotus’ Deioces was not only ambitious: he also understood the

importance of appearing just in order to advance his political career.
He carefully cultivated a self-serving reputation for justice as a means
of gaining power. Herodotus frequently recognizes the important role
of self-serving deception in political affairs. For example, he records
the belief of Egyptians that the mummified body abused by Cambyses
in the tomb of King Amasis was not the body of the king but the body
of another dead person placed there deliberately in case of attempted
abuse (3.16.5–7). But he dismisses this story as an invention designed
to save face for the Egyptians. Similarly, he dismisses the story that
Cambyses had an Egyptian mother on the grounds that this too serves
the interest of the Egyptians, otherwise humiliated by a foreign
conqueror (3.2). In general terms, Herodotus and his readers seem to
have been quite aware that local reports often contain party bias.

26

Given these views of political behaviour, Herodotus’ treatment of

the story of Gyges stands out as anomalous. Someone with Herod-
otus’ understanding of human political behaviour certainly ought to

178

RHETORIC AND THE RING

26

See D. Fehing, Herodotus and his ‘Sources’. Citation, Invention and Narrative Art, trans.

J. G. Howie (Leeds, 1989); N. Luraghi, ‘Local Knowledge in Herodotus’ Histories’, in
N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford, 2001), 144, 148–9.

have nursed suspicions about the story of Gyges as he tells it.

27

The

fact that he offers a naïve presentation of the story does not in itself
show that he did not, for he may have had good reasons for presenting
it in this way, without any authorial reservations. If he did recognize
the story as an example of exculpatory political fiction, consistency is
restored with his general outlook: just as Deioces was an ambitious
man who had mastered the art of simulating justice, so too was Gyges.
Although not mentioned explicitly by the narrator, Gyges’ rhetorical
skill can be discerned in the quality of the exculpatory story itself.

So far, I have suggested why it is likely that Herodotus would have

had doubts about the veracity of the story that he presents. In order to
strengthen this hypothesis, we will need to take a close look at
Herodotus’ narrative, to see whether he offers his readers any clues
concerning his doubts.

Telltale signs

While the bare account of Gyges’ rise was presumably inherited from
a previous source, the narrative that Herodotus presents serves to
heighten the apologetic effect of the story in ways that suggest the
author’s awareness of this function. The conversations that Herodotus
records between the king and Gyges on the one hand, and between
the queen and Gyges on the other – elements that presumably re-
ceived their form at Herodotus’ own hands – provide a psychological
dimension that makes an otherwise implausible sequence of events
sound plausible. The king’s bizarre behaviour and character are
further explained by an exploration of subjective elements of his inner
life (1.8.1–2). Because this portrait may still seem implausible to some
readers, Herodotus adds that Candaules had to act so because he was
destined to fare ill (1.8.2).

As we have mentioned, Gyges’ innocence is emphasized at every

point. He offers four arguments against the king’s plan, pointing out
that women lose their shame when they strip, that it is best to follow
the accepted practices handed down from ancient times, that people
should mind their own business, and that he fully believes the king’s
account of his wife’s beauty (1.8.3–4). These of course are mere argu-
ments and do not necessarily reflect Gyges’ real motivations in

RHETORIC AND THE RING

179

27

If Herodotus was familiar with other versions of the story in which Gyges’ ambition was

more patent, this would have given him an extra reason to suspect the version that he tells.

declining the offer. But Herodotus also tells us that Gyges protested
the king’s demand ‘fearing that something bad might befall him as a
result of these matters’ (1.9.1). Although he does not respond to
Gyges’ arguments, the king does respond to Gyges’ thoughts – as
though Herodotus has forgotten that thoughts are not audible – re-
assuring him that he has a plan that will shield Gyges from any
possible harm (1.9.1–3). The report of the real motivation, fear rather
than piety, adds to the realism of the story. And the king’s reassur-
ances not only serve to compel Gyges to follow through with the plan
but also seem designed to shield him from the obligation to pay a
penalty for his deeds. In pleading his case after the event, Gyges could
well be imagined telling his audience that he received a special
promise from the king that he would suffer no wrong as a result of his
obedient misdeeds. Thus, not only the bare essentials of the story
reflect the apologetic aim of the murders but also those elements that
can be presumed to reflect Herodotus’ own artistry serve the very
same purpose. This suggests that Herodotus was fully aware of the
apologetic aim of the story that he records.

Herodotus also expends effort to explain one of the most awkward

aspects of the event, whether we conceive it as an actual historical
event or as a merely fictive one. In either case, it is clear that the king
is to be conceived as having been found murdered in his bed. This,
together with the queen’s swift decision to marry the murderer, would
undoubtedly have raised suspicions of foul play in the minds of his-
torical or fictive Lydians.

28

It is in order to counter these suspicions,

while acknowledging the apparently undeniable location of the
corpse, that Herodotus has the queen explain to Gyges that ‘the
attack will commence from the place at which he showed me bare’
(1.11.5). They will deliberately kill the king in his bed, because this is
the place in which he committed his crime against the queen. As a
literary motif, the idea is that the punishment ought somehow to fit
the crime, and it seems typically Herodotean. But, at the same time,
by explaining the intimate location of the murder in this way, the
queen’s words brilliantly turn suspicions of sexual wrongdoing against
the victim. The awkward location becomes a sign not of the moral

180

RHETORIC AND THE RING

28

On the right of a usurper to marry the previous queen, see J. Geiger, ‘The Hasmoneans

and Hellenistic Succession’, Journal of Jewish Studies 53 (2002), 8; M. Finkelberg, ‘Royal
Succession in Heroic Greece’, CQ 41 (1991), 303–16; L. Gernet, ‘Marriages of Tyrants’, in The
Anthropology of Ancient Greece, trans. J. Hamilton and B. Nagy (Baltimore, MD and London,
1981), 289–302. Gyges may not enjoy the easy exercise of this privilege: since he evidently plans
to use his marriage to the queen as a means to legitimate his claim, he obviously cannot base his
right to the marriage on the validity of his claim.

turpitude of the killers but of that of the king. By introducing this
explanation, Herodotus takes an active part in propagating Gyges’
politically expedient fiction. At the very least, from these examples we
can see that Herodotus writes excellent propaganda; and it is difficult
to believe that he could have done so without being aware of what he
was doing.

Further reasons for suspicion, however, are the numerous telltale

inconsistencies found in the narrative. Many of these were noticed
long ago. A short composition from the fifth century

CE

, written by

one Nikolaos Sophistes and entitled ‘That the Story of Candaules is
not Credible’, offers a mildly humorous critique of the story for
numerous implausibilities, including the following:

Again, how could Candaules fall in love with his own wife? For either he did not
cohabit with her or else he did, and in that case he did not desire her; for companion-
ship destroys love and the impulse of desire is destroyed by marriage. . . .

And where in the house was he [that is, Gyges] stationed to observe her? Behind

the door, by Zeus! If so, he would have escaped notice and therefore would not have
seen her either. For that which is hidden from others is itself the first to escape
notice.

29

And how could he see the woman bare? It was not the custom among the Lydians

to strip oneself. Not even the men went without some covering, and certainly not the
women.

And why should a woman who is merely going to bed take off all her clothes?

Women who derive an income from their favors, even if they strip themselves before
men, do so for the purpose of inspiring their viewers with passion.

30

Women who are

modest in their relations do not consider it right to strip for their lovers. How then
could Gyges be present and look at a woman who, even to begin with, did not intend
to take off all her clothes? Why did the woman send for Gyges and give him the
choice of marriage if she could not bear his seeing her? And why did she honor as a
husband him whom she shrank from having as a spectator?

31

Another difficulty was noted by the ancient author of a dramatic

rendering of the story (see above, note 2): How did the queen, on
seeing Gyges, immediately know that her husband had set him up to
it? This is an essential part of the story, for without it the queen will
have no reason to force Gyges to kill her husband. As readers, we of
course know that the king has forced Gyges into this situation and so

RHETORIC AND THE RING

181

29

This problem is solved in the version quoted by Photius (n. 5), where the queen has a

serpent with the power to reveal what is hidden.

30

Literally ‘forcing their viewers to eros’ (biazomenai). The term biazomai is often used for

rape; but here is it the appearance of the women that ‘rapes’ the men.

31

In C. Walz, Rhetores Graeci (Stuttgart, 1832), i.287–8. English translation after K. F.

Smith, ‘The Literary Tradition of Gyges and Candaules’, American Journal of Philology 41
(1920), 12–13.

we accept the queen’s insight as plausible. But it is hard to see why
the queen would not have thought Gyges himself at fault. The drama-
tist solved this problem by having the queen deduce her conclusion by
observing the king’s reaction to the presence of Gyges, but Herodotus
offers nothing of the sort.

32

Such weaknesses serve to raise doubts in the minds of readers

concerning the ostensible explanation of events provided by the narra-
tive. They help mark the story as a fiction even within the fictive
world of Herodotus’ text. However, the most important clues are the
telltale signs of another story lurking under the surface of Herodotus’
narrative, a story in which Gyges is not so innocent.

In Plato’s version, Gyges had seduced the queen prior to the

murder, and it is essential for Herodotus’ story that this not be the
case. Yet Herodotus tells us that Gyges was accustomed to visit
(phoitân) the women’s quarters whenever the queen called (1.11.1).
He mentions this in order to explain why he came when the queen
summoned him for a discussion after the event, but it also serves to
undermine the main narrative by suggesting a prior intimacy with the
queen.

33

Pompeius Trogus (see above, note 4), who otherwise shows

no signs of familiarity with any source other than Herodotus, assumes
as a matter of course that a romantic relationship had developed
between Gyges and the queen.

34

Another incongruity shows up at the end of the story. After Gyges

has usurped the throne, there is a confrontation between his partisans
(stasiôtai) and the rest of the Lydians. Where are we to suppose that
Gyges gained the support of a partisan group capable of coming to
terms with the rest of the nation?

35

It is true that Gyges was said to be

a spearman who enjoyed the favour of the king (1.8.1). But the very
fact that he held a military position itself looks like a telltale hint that
the overthrow of Candaules was a military coup, as in Plutarch’s
version. And in any case, one may wonder how and when, according

182

RHETORIC AND THE RING

32

‘In the story, as Herodotus tells it, there is no ground for the queen’s certitude that

Kandaules is to blame’ (Lobel [n. 2], 208).

33

It undermines the narrative in another way as well: if Gyges was frequently in the

women’s quarters, his presence outside her bedroom door should not have seemed so surprising
as to allow her to draw the conclusion that her husband had forced him to be there.

34

K. F. Smith also saw signs that Herodotus has suppressed an erotic connection between

Gyges and the queen (Smith [n. 1], 281–2). But his conclusion, that the ring was present in
Herodotus’ source, does not follow. Queens have been seduced without magic rings. The fact
that this detail is more appropriate to a Greek story than a Persian one (Smith [n. 1], 281; How
and Wells [n. 11], 59) suggests that Herodotus himself introduced it. If so, he has himself
dropped this hint about Gyges’ relations with the queen.

35

This question is explicitly addressed in the Xanthos/Nicholas/Porphyrogennetos version,

where Gyges is said to have assured himself of the support of his friends before killing the king.

to Herodotus’ story, Gyges persuaded these men to support him.
According to Herodotus, he would not have been planning for a mili-
tary confrontation prior to killing the king, which would have left him
very little time to get organized after the event.

36

Yet another suspicious element is the fact that, after pronouncing in

Gyges’ favour, the oracle of Delphi receives a reward in the form of
gold presents (1.14.13). At this point in the narrative, Herodotus has
not yet indicated, as he will later, that the oracle of Delphi accepted
bribes (5.66; 5.90; 6.123), but a worldly reader could easily draw that
conclusion on his or her own.

37

A Gyges who bribes an oracle to

maintain power is not the innocent Gyges that Herodotus presents on
the surface.

Finally, one has to wonder how the reader is to suppose that this

story ever got into circulation. While much work has been done on
analysing Herodotus’ immediate sources, the question of his implied
originative sources is of no less importance. The central events in the
story of Gyges concern actions and words that could have been
known only to a very small group of people. Since the dead king is in
no position to recount anything, Gyges and the queen remain the sole
witnesses mentioned by Herodotus who can corroborate their version
of events. Within the narrative, the only possible reliable sources for
the story would have been the very people whose interests it so well
serves. The fact that they are the only possible reliable sources of a
story that exonerates them so well may raise further suspicions in the
minds of readers about its veracity.

In short, while the story of Gyges works excellently as a verbal

deception serving the interests of Candaules’ murderers, it also con-
tains telltale signs of an alternative and more politically and
historically realistic sequence of events underlying the rise of Gyges.
The implausibilities and incongruities contained in the story can be
understood by the reader as arising from the effort of the murderers,
whether conceived as historical or literary persons, to graft an excul-
patory explanation onto the bedrock of inconvenient but incontrovert-

RHETORIC AND THE RING

183

36

It is of course conceivable that he would have been able to recruit a force after committing

the murder. But the Herodotean narrative skips this whole question, as though its author is
unaware of the difficulty. This may be an accommodation to the original story. Recruitment is a
feature of the story that the usurper could not easily alter, since his recruits would have known
his intentions full well when he recruited them.

37

‘Above all, his appeal to Delphi, accompanied by a most substantial fee, to arbitrate his

right to the throne insured, for all time, a lively and favorable tradition of this particular event in
his career’ (Smith [n. 1], 262). In the Xanthos/Nicholas/Porphyrogennetos version, gifts are
given to reconcile adversaries, not to Delphi.

ible facts. Their presence and augmentation in Herodotus’ text is a
sign that he was well aware of their significance.

Herodotus does not eliminate these signs but reproduces them

vividly. Rather than eliminating ambiguities, Herodotus has repro-
duced or produced them, suggesting that he himself wished to present
an ambiguous story. The story that Herodotus tells challenges the
reader to distinguish between two accounts of the murder. Naïve
readers – those as innocent as Gyges’ original fictive or non-fictive
audience

38

– will accept the story as true and will wonder innocently

at the peculiar character of the king, the bold decisiveness of the
queen, and the wonderfully righteous character of Gyges. Readers
with more experience of politics and political intrigue will suspect that
Herodotus is winking at them. They may perceive that the story that
proclaims his innocence is itself a clever part of Gyges’ historical or
fictive political intrigue. This is part of the entertainment that
Herodotus provides for his readers. He tests them with a riddle,
challenging them to see through the usurper’s disguise. This kind of
entertainment would also serve as a form of education: in a world of
political intrigue, where persuasiveness and the ability to see through
it are prime virtues, one could learn many useful lessons from
studying Herodotus’ narratives.

39

This analysis of how Herodotus presents the story has implications

for our evaluation of his historical judgement. It implies that he held a
cynical view of human motivation, and that he used that view to
distinguish between politically realistic or historically plausible
accounts of events and those false accounts of events that have their
origin in the need of political actors to falsify their motives. But it also
implies that he did not make this distinction his principle of selection.
Although raising doubts about the veracity of the story, Herodotus
nevertheless included it in his Histories. He did so because it serves as
an excellent introduction to many of the great themes of his composi-
tion, not least the theme of the politically expedient tale.

184

RHETORIC AND THE RING

38

It is not necessary to assume, however, that rhetoric only works on those who believe it. It

is also possible to gain advantage by the use of stories that are known to be false even to their
hearers. Even if many Lydians would have seen through the story, they would not have been
able to contradict it flatly, and once Gyges’ rule was confirmed, they would have been compelled
to treat it with respect.

39

As one anonymous reader for Greece & Rome has suggested, the naïve presentation of the

story of Gyges is appropriate to its position at the beginning of the work. Further reading in the
Histories will enable the reader to understand it with a broader perspective.

Plato mythopoios?

Once we recognize the ambiguity inherent in the Herodotean narra-
tive, we are in a better position to appreciate the connection between
this version of the Gyges story and that of Plato. Historians tend to
assume that Plato based his version of the story on some historical
source: K. F. Smith attempted to reconstruct a hypothetical original
that could serve as the basis for both versions.

40

However, while

Smith’s comparative method was able to show some parallels between
Plato’s story and other eastern fables, it was unable to account for
some of the important details of the story (270–5). Thus, Smith
found no significance in the storm and earthquake (271, n. 1), in the
bronze horse (272), or in the fact that a corpse was buried in it (274).
And he found no earlier version of the Gyges story in which a magic
ring figures (268, n. 2). So, while Plato may well be drawing on a
general acquaintance with folk stories, or another version of the Gyges
story, it is quite possible that he is himself responsible for some of the
unique features of his version.

As Andrew Laird has argued,

41

a supremely prolific mythopoios such

as Plato could certainly have invented major elements of the story.

42

He suggests that Glaucon’s reference to the ring as acquired and used
by ‘the ancestor of Gyges the Lydian’ is intended by Plato as a subtle
indication of the essential fictiveness of the story (18). As the founder
of a dynasty, Herodotus’ Gyges could not possibly have had an
ancestor who became king of Lydia by this or any other means.

But Laird’s central claim is that Plato’s largely invented version of

the story draws heavily on Herodotus’ version. He notes the repeated
use of terms referring to vision in both stories (15–16) and a resem-
blance between the moral issues raised by Herodotus and Plato
(16–17). He argues that the most unique feature of Plato’s story, the
ring of invisibility, could have been inspired by the fact that Herod-
otus refers to Gyges as the son of Daskylos, a name which resembles
the word for ring, daktylion (17–18).

43

There are other signs of intertextuality as well. As P. Schubert

RHETORIC AND THE RING

185

40

Smith (n. 1).

41

Laird (n. 7).

42

Other versions of the story, such as that recorded by Ptolemy, also contain magical

elements: in Ptolemy’s version there is a serpent that enables its owner to uncover those who are
hidden. If magic was a popular element in the story, it is likely that Plato did not invent his
version full cloth.

43

The ring also gives Plato a convenient means to portray the object as the possession of a

dead man, thus hinting at its destructive capacity.

notes, the idea of invisibility is present implicitly in Herodotus’
version of the story: the king hides Gyges behind the door so that he
will not be seen.

44

Although the motives are different, the main events

that are described are the same: in Plato’s story, Gyges uses the ring
to enter the palace, seduce the king’s wife, and together with her slay
the king (360a–b). Similarly, Plato’s Glaucon says that the unjust man
can win favour with the gods by sacrifice and votive offerings
(anath

e

mata, 362c), which is exactly what Gyges does in Herodotus’

story (1.13–14).

45

These similarities suggest that Plato’s version is a creative adapta-

tion of Herodotus’ version.

46

But if this is true, and Plato is not

relying on an alternative version of the story, we will need to explain
all the many changes and additions that he makes to the Herodotean
narrative. Why does Plato portray Gyges as a shepherd rather than as
a member of court, as he is in Herodotus?

47

Why does he mention a

thunderstorm, an earthquake, an underground cavern, a hollow
bronze horse with openings, and inside it a corpse with a magical ring
on its hand? It is precisely the folk-story-like quality of these details
that led scholars such as Smith to assume that Plato was basing him-
self on a pre-existing story. If that is wrong, and Plato is responsible
for them, he must have had reasons for including them. If so, these
details should bear some special philosophical significance within the
structure of Republic. Plato would not have been so inventive without
a purpose.

Secondly, if Laird’s hypothesis is right, we need to ask what there is

in Herodotus’ story that would have suggested its usefulness for
Plato’s purpose. Laird points to the presence of similar moral issues,
but the specific moral issue that Plato’s Glaucon is trying to illustrate
is the problem of the unjust man who succeeds, an issue that would
be illustrated better by many Herodotean stories other than the story
of Gyges. As we have pointed out, in Herodotus’ version, at least on a
superficial reading, Gyges is an innocent man. Why then would Plato

186

RHETORIC AND THE RING

44

Schubert (n. 14), 257–8; see also Laird (n. 7), 16.

45

Herodotus’ Gyges speaks of the obligation to ‘view one’s own things’ (1.8.4). As A. Ophir

points out, this formulation may be related to Plato’s definition of justice in Republic as ‘doing
one’s own things’ (Plato’s Invisible Cities. Discourse and Power in the Republic [London, 1991],
170, n. 8).

46

Ophir offers a speculative account of the relation between the stories (ibid., 10–23).

J. Adam minimizes the connection (The Republic of Plato [second edition, Cambridge, 1969],
i.126–7).

47

Xenophon is familiar with a version that, like Plato’s, makes Gyges a commoner, even a

slave, and the brevity of his reference seems to imply that his audience is as well (Cyropaedia
7.2.24).

have looked to this particular story to illustrate the fundamental moral
challenge of his Republic?

In order to answer these questions we need to consider more

closely the role that the story plays in Plato’s narrative. It is often said
that the story of Gyges functions as a thought experiment and
concerns an unrealistic hypothesis.

48

But it is not perhaps so unreal-

istic after all. Socrates has been asked to defend the life of justice in
the face of the challenges set by sophists such as Thrasymachus and
others who claimed to be able to prepare young people for successful
careers in public life. Some of these teachers taught that acting
contrary to justice could be useful in achieving worldly success. But
their teaching also focused on practical skills such as rhetoric, which
are useful for attaining these aims. In this context, the ring of invisi-
bility represents more than a thought experiment concerning the
willingness to act unjustly. It also represents a very real option that
young men in Athens had to consider, namely to make one’s crimes
‘invisible’ by means of the power of rhetoric.

After telling the story of Gyges, Glaucon describes the ideal he has

in mind as follows:

The unjust man who attempts injustice rightly must be supposed to escape detection if
he is to be altogether unjust, and we must regard the man who is caught as a bungler.
For the height of injustice is to seem just without being so. To the perfectly unjust man,
then, we must assign perfect injustice and withhold nothing of it, but we must allow
him, while committing the greatest wrongs, to have secured for himself the greatest
reputation for justice, and if he does happen to trip, we must concede to him the
power to correct his mistakes by his ability to speak persuasively if any of his misdeeds
come to light, and when force is needed, to employ force by means of his manly spirit
and vigour and his possession of friends and money.

Republic, 361a–b

49

By enabling the unjust to appear just, the power of rhetoric goes a
long way towards providing the invisibility of Gyges’ ring. Rather than
pure fantasy, the ring of invisibility merely takes this power to an
imaginative extreme.

50

The perfect practitioner of rhetoric would be

able to ‘escape detection’ by means of his ability to speak persuasively
and thus, like Gyges, to seem perfectly just.

51

The ring therefore

serves as an excellent symbol of the ability of rhetoricians to achieve

RHETORIC AND THE RING

187

48

See Laird (n. 7), 20–4.

49

Translation from A. Bloom, The Republic of Plato (Ithaca, NY, 1968), emphasis added.

50

See Bloom (n. 49), 341. As Dr Donna Shalev has pointed out to me, the connection

between rhetoric and magic is an important theme in the Arabic material on Gyges. In Plato’s
works, dialectical arguments are sometimes compared to ‘charms’ (

epôdai: Charmides 155e–

157d; 175e–176b; see Phaedo 77e–78a).

51

See also Gorgias, where rhetoric’s power to deceive is explored in great detail.

unjust success, a success that, as Plato argues, carries with it untold
damage both to society at large and to the unjust man himself.

Equipped with this view of the ring, we may turn to the details of

Plato’s story and ask ‘To what extent do the details that he presents
accord with the overall aims of the composition?’ The greater the
accord, the more likely it is that these details were produced by Plato
rather than reproduced from existing material.

One of the major differences between Plato’s version and the other

versions of the Gyges story is that Plato makes Gyges a simple shep-
herd rather than a member of the court. This seems designed to
emphasize the injustice of Gyges’ act. The rule of a slave or person of
low status was in ancient times considered an especially severe injus-
tice.

52

In the later books of Plato’s Republic it is the intermingling of

the different classes that brings about the destruction of the ideal
regime (415c; 547a–b). While Gyges would be an unjust man even if
he were a member of the court, making him a simple shepherd
emphasizes the point.

In his discussion with Thrasymachus, Socrates maintains that the

job of a shepherd is to raise the sheep for the sake of his master, and
not to devour them himself (345c–d). Gyges is not portrayed as a
shepherd who devours the sheep; but he is portrayed as one who
murders his master and takes possession of all his substance. Again,
the persona of a shepherd resonates with the imagery of Republic and
helps to emphasize Gyges’ injustice.

In Plato’s story, Gyges finds the ring underground in a cavern

opened up by an earthquake. Republic contains several references to
the underground, the most famous of which are the noble lie and the
cave analogy. In the noble lie, the citizens are said to have been born
of the earth, so that the earth is the citizens’ mother, and is to be
defended as such (414e). In the cave analogy, the citizens are
portrayed as living underground, in a cave not unlike that into which
Gyges descends. The cave is a realm in which enchained men are
shown images by others who parade objects before a fire, throwing
shadows on a wall (514a–515a). Here, the cave seems to represent the
city, which exerts a powerful influence over men’s characters and
opinions. This image may serve as an explanation of the meaning
behind the noble lie: the citizens really are born of the earth, and the

188

RHETORIC AND THE RING

52

See Archelaus in Gorgias (471a). For a near-eastern parallel, see Proverbs 30.21–3: ‘For

three things the earth quakes, and for four it cannot bear up; for a slave who becomes king, and
for a fool who fills his belly; for an odious woman who gains the master’s bed; and for a maid-
servant who gains the inheritance of her mistress.’

earth really is their mother, once we realize that the ‘earth’ represents
the political community.

Among other things, the parade of images in the cave is meant to

reflect the power of rhetoricians and poets to control the demos. It is
no coincidence that, by descending into a cave and retrieving a
magical ring, Plato’s Gyges gains a rhetorical power that enables him
to enslave the people of his political community. This connection is
indicated by a small linguistic parallel: the shadow-casting images
used in the cave are referred to as thaumata, here meaning puppets or
fabrications, made by thaumatapoioi, here meaning puppet-makers or
tricksters (514b). The same root is used three times in the Gyges
story, twice as a verb describing Gyges’ reactions to his discoveries
(359d, 360a) and once describing the fabulous treasures that he found
(359d). This reflects the identity of the analogue in the two scenes:
the ring that Gyges retrieves provides the same power of rhetoric that
binds men in the cave.

The ring is found on the hand of a large corpse, evidently its

previous owner. The large size of the corpse serves as an excellent
indication of the material advantages that accrued to him as a result
of the use of rhetoric. The fact that he is now dead, however, serves to
show that such advantages do not necessarily serve their owners’ best
interests. Republic as a whole illustrates the damage that is caused to
the soul by acting without knowledge of good and bad, and in partic-
ular the damage incurred by the tyrannical individual, by means of his
unregulated power to obtain the objects of his desire.

A corpse is mentioned in Book 4 of Republic as an object that draws

the eyes against one’s will (439e–440a). In this it resembles the queen
whom Herodotus’ Gyges was forced to watch against his will. Like the
queen, this corpse appears to be naked: it has nothing but a ring
(359d–e). Like the queen, it is an object of visual curiosity (‘he
peeped in and saw a corpse within’: 359d). Plato has transformed the
beautiful bare queen of Herodotus into a naked corpse. Nakedness
may serve here as a symbol of the natural reality that lies under the
conventions of human culture. Nature in pre-Socratic political
thought is the realm of interest, not justice. While the pursuit of
nature takes on a beautiful aspect in the story of Herodotus, for Plato
it possesses an attraction that is ultimately repulsive. This transforma-
tion gives expression to the low esteem in which Plato holds the world
of nature as conceived by his predecessors, shorn of his own idealizing
visions.

RHETORIC AND THE RING

189

The dead body is in a bronze horse. As far as I am aware, archae-

ology has not unearthed a case of a man or woman buried inside a
replica of a horse or other animal, although there are several cases of
people buried together with their horses.

53

But, in Republic, Plato

develops the image of a human being as containing within him a soul
that has three parts, represented as a man, a lion, and a many-headed
beast (Republic 588b–589b). The image of a dead man within a
bronze horse may be intended as a variant on that image. Plato may
have wished to suggest that, as a result of his pursuits of objects
obtainable by means of rhetorical power, the animal part of the soul
has completely overgrown the human, and the human part is now
dead.

In short, many of the central details of the story can be explained in

terms of the images and concepts that Plato uses elsewhere in
Republic. If Plato is recording an existing story, he may have chosen
this one precisely because its images resonate with images that he
wished to use in other parts of Republic. One could perhaps argue that
he developed the images he uses later out of the material in the Gyges
story that he found and adopted. But it seems at least as likely that
Plato himself is responsible for creating some of the important images
in his story of Gyges.

Plato’s view of Herodotus’ Gyges

If his story is based on Herodotus, Plato has surely worked a thorough
transformation. Unlike the Herodotean figure, Plato’s Gyges’ is an
unambiguously criminal figure, a hot-blooded adulterer and cold-
blooded murderer.

54

This transformation of Gyges seems paralleled

by a minor but significant transformation in the treatment of Gyges’
gifts to the gods. Whereas for Herodotus, the fact that the gods, by
means of the Oracle of Delphi, confirmed Gyges’ reign in return for
gifts (anath

e

mata) is another amusing tribute to a masterful politician,

for Plato it inspires Glaucon’s serious moral complaint that the gods
can be bribed by means of sacrifices and votive offerings (anath

e

mata

190

RHETORIC AND THE RING

53

Efforts to find a parallel were made by G. Hanfmann, ‘Lydiaka’, Harvard Studies in Clas-

sical Philology 63 (1958), 76–9.

54

Formally, the story of Gyges plays a role in Republic parallel to the role of Archelaus in

Gorgias. In both cases, an example of a person who has clearly acted unjustly is introduced by an
interlocutor in order to force Socrates to clarify his seemingly ambiguous references to justice.
This parallel suggests that the arguments in Books 1 and 2 of Republic are as closely connected
as are the arguments in Gorgias.

362c). In Plato, the ambiguities of Herodotus’ portrait are stripped
away. What for Herodotus are amusing anecdotes about the way the
world works are for Plato grave endorsements of injustice.

55

But why

would Plato have chosen the seemingly inappropriate story of poor,
innocent Gyges as a portrait of grave criminality in need of exposure?

It is of course true that Plato takes a more severe view of moral

flaws than does Herodotus. For Plato, behaviour that is looked on
with approval or indulgence by the vast majority of people may never-
theless not differ essentially from that of the criminal. In his Republic,
Glaucon and Adeimantus describe the essential agreement between
the immoral sophists and the respected citizens of Athens (360b–d;
362c; 362e–367a). For Plato, even the threat of death is no reason to
stir one millimetre from the demands of justice, as his Socrates proves
by word and deed in Crito. By such standards, even the innocent
Gyges of a superficial reading of Herodotus could be viewed as an
unjust man: he should have preferred death to crime. But Gyges is
surely no worse than many or most of Herodotus’ other political
actors. The Greeks had innumerable stories of those whose commit-
ment to injustice did not stand up to Socratic standards; compared to
them Herodotus’ Gyges is a relatively mild offender.

A second objection: Plato interprets the Gyges story as revolving

around the power of the ring, which we interpreted as an image for
rhetoric. But the Gyges of Herodotus is no master of rhetoric: on the
contrary, he fails to persuade either the king or the queen to excuse
him from crime. The story therefore seems only dimly related to the
central issues that Plato wishes to illustrate in the challenge set before
Socrates in Republic.

A solution can be found, I suggest, only if we assume that Plato

read the story along the lines that we have proposed above. According
to the argument Plato puts in Glaucon’s mouth, the most effective
means of gaining political power is by appearing just while behaving
unjustly, and the most effective means to this end is rhetoric. It
follows that the most successful unjust men are found not in public
jails but in the most respected seats of power, dignity, and influence.
The most illustrative stories of successful injustice concern, therefore,
not those who are easily identified as unjust but those who, like
Herodotus’ Gyges, know how to make themselves look innocent.

56

RHETORIC AND THE RING

191

55

If Plato’s transformation of the story of Gyges is an indictment of Herodotus’ casual

immorality, it applies to his work as a whole. While Homer serves as the main object of Plato’s
attack in Books 2 and 3 of Republic, the reference to Gyges may show that Herodotus is an
equally serious target for the argument of Republic as a whole.

56

For this reason, the respected figure of Cephalus presents as serious a challenge to

Socrates in Republic as does Thrasymachus.

The just character and rhetorical inability that Gyges displays on a
superficial reading of Herodotus’ narrative is exactly the appearance
an unjust man would want to cultivate by means of rhetoric. The
story that Herodotus tells is the kind of story that an unjust man
needs to tell in order to prevent his crimes from exposing him. It is
not because Gyges uses effective rhetoric in Herodotus’ story – he
does not – but because the story that Herodotus tells is itself a bril-
liant example of political rhetoric that it serves as a symbol of the
power of rhetoric to make the unjust seem just. The ring that Plato
invents, if he invented it, is based not on one element of Herodotus’
story but on the rhetorical power that it exemplifies as a whole.

From this point of view, it becomes easier to explain why Plato

opens the central argument of his Republic with a reference to the
Herodotean Gyges. The story is chosen not simply because it contains
an act of injustice – many such acts are recorded in Herodotus and
elsewhere – but because it contains a brilliant illustration of the power
of rhetoric to disguise injustice.

57

His example works all the better if

his readers would have thought not only of the Gyges of the magic
ring but also of the master of political rhetoric found implicitly in
Herodotus.

Earlier I argued that Herodotus was perfectly aware of the charac-

ter of the story that he tells and offered his audience hints concerning
it. I have now argued that Plato also read it in this light, and that he
expected members of his audience to do so as well. Not only do these
arguments reinforce each other, they also suggest that political savvy
and the ability to penetrate duplicity were fundamental to the literary
sensibility of much of the Greek public. If so, they are also prerequi-
sites for our own interpretation of this literature.

192

RHETORIC AND THE RING

57

In Plato’s transformed version of the story, rhetoric (symbolized by the ring) even gains

the power to make injustice possible in the first place.