by M. I. Finley
5. Such is the account which the Persians give of these matters. They trace to the attack upon Troy their ancient enmity towards the Greeks. The Phoenicians, however, as regards Io, vary from the Persian statements. They deny that they used any violence to remove her into Egypt; she herself, they say, having formed an intimacy with the captain, while his vessel lay at Argos, and perceiving herself to be with child, of her own freewill accompanied the Phoenicians on their leaving the shore, to escape the shame of detection and the reproaches of her parents. This is what the Persians and the Phoenicians say. Whether this account be true, or whether the matter happened otherwise, I shall not discuss further. I shall proceed at once to point out the person who first within my own knowledge inflicted injury on the Greeks, after which I shall go forward with my history, describing equally the greater and the lesser cities of men. For the cities which were formerly great have most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful were weak in the olden time. I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay.
6. Croesus, son of Alyattes, by birth a Lydian, was lord [c. 560-546 B.C.] of all the nations to the west of the river Halys. This stream, which separates Syria [i.e., Cappadocia] from Paphlagonia, runs with a course from south to north, and finally falls into the Black Sea. So far as our knowledge goes, he was the first of the barbarians who had dealings with the Greeks, forcing some of them to become his tributaries, and entering into alliance with others. He conquered the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians of Asia, and made friends with the Lacedaemonians. Up to that time all Greeks had been free. For the Cimmerian attack upon Ionia, which was earlier than Croesus, was not a conquest of the cities, but only an inroad for plundering.
7. The sovereignty of Lydia, which had belonged to the Heraclids, passed into the family of Croesus, who were called the Mermnadae, in the manner which I will now relate. There was a certain king of Sardis, Candaules by name, whom the Greeks called Myrsilus. He was a descendant of Alcaeus, son of Hercules. The first king of this dynasty was Agron, son of Ninus, grandson of Belus, and great-grandson of Alcaeus; Candaules, son of Myrsus, was the last. The kings who reigned before Agron sprang from Lydus, son of Atys, from whom the people of the land, called previously Meonians, received the name of Lydians. The Heraclids, descended from Hercules and [Omphale,] the slave-girl of Iardanus, having been entrusted by the descendants of Lydus with the management of affairs, obtained the kingdom by an oracle. Their rule endured for two and twenty generations of men, a space of five hundred and five years; during the whole of which period, down to Candaules, the crown descended in the direct line from father to son.
8. Now it happened that this Candaules was in love with his own wife; and not only so, but thought her the fairest woman in the whole world. Full of this thought—among his bodyguard his favourite was Gyges, the son of Dascylus, to whom he entrusted all affairs of greatest moment—Candaules used to fill Gyges with excessive praise of his wife’s beauty. After a brief period, Candaules, who was fated to end ill, addressed Gyges as follows: “I see you do not credit what I tell you of my lady’s loveliness; but come now, since men’s ears are less credulous than their eyes, contrive some means whereby you may behold her naked.” At this the other loudly exclaimed, saying, “What most unwise speech is this, master, ordering me to behold my mistress when she is naked? When she puts off her clothes, a woman also puts off her modesty. Long ago men learned the wise precepts by which one should be taught. There is an old saying, ‘Let each look on his own.’ I hold your wife for the fairest of all womankind. Only, I beseech you, ask me not to do wickedly.”
9. Gyges thus endeavoured to decline the king’s proposal, trembling lest some evil should befall him through it. But the king replied to him, “Courage, Gyges; suspect me not of the design to test you by this discourse; nor fear my wife, lest mischief befall you on her account. Be sure I will so manage that she shall not even know that you have looked upon her. I will place you behind the open door of the chamber in which we sleep. As soon as I have gone in, my wife will also enter to go to bed. There stands a chair close to the entrance, on which she will lay her clothes one by one as she takes them off. You will thus be able to look at her at your leisure. Then, when she is moving from the chair towards the bed, and her back is turned to you, take care that she does not see you as you pass through the doorway.”
10. Gyges, unable to escape, could but declare his readiness. Then Candaules, when bedtime came, led Gyges into his chamber, and a moment after the queen followed. She entered, and laid her garments on the chair, and Gyges gazed on her. After a while she moved towards the bed, and her back being then turned, he glided stealthily from the apartment. As he was passing out, however, she saw him, and, instantly divining what had happened, she neither screamed, as her shame impelled her, nor even appeared to have noticed aught, purposing to take vengeance upon Candaules. For among the Lydians, and indeed among the barbarians generally, it is reckoned a deep disgrace, even to a man, to be seen naked.
11. No sound or sign of intelligence escaped her at the time. But in the morning, as soon as day broke, she hastened to choose from among her retinue such as she knew to be most faithful to her, and, preparing them for what was to ensue, summoned Gyges. Now it had often happened before that the queen had desired to confer with him, and he was accustomed to come to her at her call. He therefore obeyed the summons, not suspecting that she knew aught of what had occurred. Then she addressed these words to him: “Take your choice, Gyges, of two courses which are open to you. Slay Candaules, and thereby become my lord, and obtain the Lydian throne, or die this moment, so that never again, obeying all behests of your master, shall you behold what is not lawful for you. It must needs be, that either he perish by whose counsel this thing was done, or you, who saw me naked, and so did break our usages.” At these words Gyges stood awhile in mute astonishment; recovering after a time, he earnestly besought the queen that she would not compel him to so hard a choice. But finding he implored in vain, and that necessity was indeed laid on him to kill or to be killed, he made choice of life for himself, and replied by this inquiry: “If it must be so, and you compel me against my will to put my lord to death, come, let me hear how you will have me set on him.” “Let him be attacked,” she answered, “on that spot where I was by him shown naked to you, and let the assault be made when he is asleep.”
12. All was then prepared for the attack, and when night fell, Gyges, seeing that he had no retreat or escape, but must absolutely either slay Candaules, or himself be slain, followed his mistress into the bedroom. She placed a dagger in his hand, and hid him carefully behind the self-same door. Then Gyges, when the king was fallen asleep, entered privily into the chamber and struck him dead. Thus did the wife and kingdom of Candaules pass into the possession of Gyges, of whom Archiloehus the Parian, who lived about the same time, made mention in a poem written in iambic trimeter verse.
13. Gyges was afterwards confirmed in the possession of the throne by an answer of the Delphic oracle. Enraged at the murder of their king, the people flew to arms, but the partisans of Gyges came to terms with them, and it was agreed that if the Delphic oracle declared him king of the Lydians, he should reign; if otherwise, he should yield the throne to the Heraclids. As the oracle was given in his favor he became king. The Pythoness, however, added that, in the fifth generation from Gyges, vengeance should come for the Heraclids; a prophecy of which neither the Lydians nor their princes took any account till it was fulfilled.
14. Such was the way in which the Mermnadae deposed the Heraclids, and themselves obtained the sovereignty. When Gyges was established on the throne, he sent no small presents to Delphi, as his many silver offerings at the Delphic shrine testify. Besides this silver he gave a vast number of vessels of gold, among which the most worthy of mention are the goblets, six in number, and weighing altogether thirty talents, which stand in the Corinthian treasury, dedicated by him. (I call it t
he Corinthian treasury, though in strictness of speech it is the treasury not of the whole Corinthian people, but of Cypselus, son of Eetion.) Excepting Midas, son of Gordias, king of Phrygia, Gyges was the first of the barbarians whom we know to have sent offerings to Delphi. Midas dedicated the royal throne whereon he was accustomed to sit and administer justice, an object well worth looking at. It lies in the same place as the goblets presented by Gyges. The Delphians call the whole of the silver and the gold which Gyges dedicated, after the name of the donor, Gygian.
As soon as Gyges was king he made an inroad on Miletus and Smyrna, and took the city of Colophon. Afterwards, however, though he reigned eight and thirty years, he did not perform a single great exploit. I shall therefore make no further mention of him, (15) but pass on to his son and successor in the kingdom, Ardys. He took Priene and made war upon Miletus. In his reign the Cimmerians, driven from their homes by the nomads of Scythia, entered Asia and captured Sardis, all but the citadel.
16. Ardys reigned forty-nine years, and was succeeded by his son, Sadyattes, who reigned twelve years. Then Alyattes mounted the throne. This prince waged war with the Medes under Cyaxares, the grandson of Deïoces, drove the Cimmerians out of Asia, conquered Smyrna, the Colophonian colony, and invaded Clazomenae. From this last contest he did not come off as he could have wished, but met with a sore defeat.
17. In the course of his reign, Alyattes performed other actions very worthy of note, of which I will now proceed to give an account. Inheriting from his father a war with the Milesians, he pressed the siege against the city by attacking it in the following manner. When the harvest was ripe on the ground he marched his army into Milesia to the sound of pipes and harps, and flutes masculine and feminine. The buildings that were scattered over the country he neither pulled down nor burnt, nor did he even tear away the doors, but left them standing as they were. He cut down, however, and utterly destroyed all the trees and all the corn throughout the land, and then returned to his own dominions. It was idle for his army to sit down before the place, as the Milesians were masters of the sea. The reason that he did not demolish their buildings was that the inhabitants might be tempted to use them as homesteads from which to go forth to sow and till their lands; and so each time that he invaded the country he might find something to plunder.
18. In this way he carried on the war with the Milesians for eleven years, in the course of which he inflicted on them two terrible blows—one in their own country in the district of Limeneium, the other in the plain of the Maeander. During six of these eleven years, Sadyattes, the son of Ardys, who first lighted the flames of this war, was king of Lydia, and made the incursions.8 Only the five following years belong to the reign of Alyattes, son of Sadyattes, who (as I said before) inheriting the war from his father, applied himself to it unremittingly. The Milesians throughout the contest received no help at all from any of the, Ionians, excepting those of Chios, who lent them troops in requital of a like service rendered them in former times, the Milesians having fought on the side of the Chians during the whole of the war between them and the people of Erythrae.
19. It was in the twelfth year of the war that the following mischance occurred from the firing of the harvest. Scarcely had the corn been set alight by the soldiers when a violent wind carried the flames against the temple of Athena Assesia, which caught fire and was burnt to the ground. At the time no one made any account of the circumstance; but afterwards, on the return of the army to Sardis, Alyattes fell sick. His illness continued, whereupon, either advised thereto by some friend, or perchance himself conceiving the idea, he sent messengers to Delphi to inquire of the god concerning his malady. On their arrival the Pythoness declared that no answer should be given them until they had rebuilt the temple of Athena, burnt by the Lydians at Assesus in Milesia.
20. Thus much I know from information given me by the Delphians; the remainder of the story the Milesians add.
The answer made by the oracle came to the ears of Periander, son of Cypselus, who was a very close friend to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus at that period. He instantly despatched a messenger to report the oracle to him, in order that Thrasybulus, forewarned of its tenor, might the better adapt his measures to the posture of affairs. This is how it happened, say the Milesians.
21. Alyattes, the moment that the words of the oracle were reported to him, sent a herald to Miletus in hopes of concluding a truce with Thrasybulus and the Milesians for such a time as was needed to rebuild the temple. The herald went upon his way; but meantime Thrasybulus had been apprised of everything; and, conjecturing what Alyattes would do, he contrived this artifice. He had all the corn that was in the city, whether belonging to himself or to private persons, brought into the market-place, and issued an order that the Milesians should hold themselves in readiness, and, when he gave the signal, should, one and all, fall to drinking and revelry.
22. The purpose for which he gave these orders was the following. He hoped that the Sardian herald, seeing so great store of corn upon the ground, and all the city given up to festivity, would inform Alyattes of it, which fell out as he anticipated. The. herald observed the whole, and when he had delivered his message, went back to Sardis. This circumstance alone, as I gather, brought about the peace which ensued. Alyattes, who had hoped that there was now a great scarcity of corn in Miletus, and that the people were worn down to the last pitch of suffering, when he heard from the herald on his return from Miletus tidings so contrary to those he had expected, made a treaty with the enemy by which the two nations became friends and allies. He then built at Assesus two temples to Athena instead of one, and shortly after recovered from his malady. Such were the chief circumstances of the war which Alyattes waged with Thrasybulus and the Milesians.
23. This Periander, who apprised Thrasybulus of the oracle, was son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. In his time a very wonderful thing is said to have happened. The Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the matter. They relate that Arion of Methymna, who as a harper was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the first to compose dithyrambs, to give them that name, and to recite in them at Corinth, was carried to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.
24. He had lived for many years at the court of Periander, when a longing came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having gained great wealth in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking that there was no people in whom he could more safely confide; and, going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he beseeched them to spare his life, making them welcome to his money. But they refused; and required him either to kill himself outright, if he wished for a grave on the dry land, or without loss of time to leap overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play and sing, and promising that, as soon as his song was ended, he would destroy himself. Delighted at the prospect of hearing the very best harper in the world, they consented, and withdrew from the stem to the middle of the vessel, while Arion dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, took his harp, and, standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian hymn. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dolphin, they say, took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his musician’s dress, and told all that had happened to him. Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, and that they ha
d left him at Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the vessel: the men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians give; and there is to this day at Taenarum an offering of Arion’s at the shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, representing a man seated upon a dolphin.
25. Having brought the war with the Milesians to a close, and reigned over the land of Lydia for fifty-seven years, Alyattes died. He was the second prince of his house who made offerings at Delphi. His gifts, which he sent on recovering from his sickness, were a great bowl of pure silver, with a salver in soldered iron, a work among all the offerings at Delphi the best worth looking at. Glaucus, the Chian, made it, the man who first invented the art of soldering iron.
26. On the death of Alyattes, Croesus, his son, who was thirty-five years old, succeeded to the throne. Of the Greek cities, Ephesus was the first that he attacked. The Ephesians, when he laid siege to the place, dedicated their city to Artemis by stretching a rope from the town wall to the temple of the goddess, which was distant from the ancient city, then besieged by Croesus, a space of seven furlongs. They were, as I said, the first Greeks whom he attacked. Afterwards, on some pretext or other, he made war in turn upon every Ionian and Aeolian state, bringing forward, where he could, a substantial ground of complaint; where such failed him, advancing some poor excuse.
27. In this way he made himself master of all the Greek cities in Asia, and forced them to become his tributaries; after which he began to think of building ships, and attacking the islanders. Everything had been got ready for this purpose, when Bias of Priene (or, as some say, Pittacus the Mytilenean) put a stop to the project. The king had made inquiry of this person, who was lately arrived at Sardis, if there were any news from Greece; to which he answered, “Yes, sire, the islanders have purchased ten thousand horses, designing an expedition against you and your capital.” Croesus, thinking he spoke seriously, broke out, “Ah, might the gods put such a thought into their minds as to attack the sons of the Lydians with cavalry!” “It seems, O King,” rejoined the other, “that you earnestly desire to catch the islanders on horseback upon the mainland—you know well what would come of it. But what do you think the islanders desire better, now that they hear you are about to build ships and sail against them, than to catch the Lydians at sea, and there revenge on them the wrongs of their brothers upon the mainland, whom you hold in slavery?” Croesus was charmed with the turn of the speech; and thinking there was reason in what was said, gave up his shipbuilding and concluded a league of amity with the Ionians of the isles.