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be careful to leave the room without being discovered.

X. Gyges had no alternative but compliance. At the time of retiring to rest, he accompanied Candaules to his chamber, and the queen soon afterwards appeared. He saw her enter, and gradually disrobe herself. She approached the bed; and Gyges endeavoured to retire, but the queen saw and knew him. She instantly conceived her husband to be the cause of her disgrace, and determined on revenge. She had the presence of mind to restrain the emotions of her wounded delicacy, and to seem entirely ignorant of what had happened; although, among all the Barbarian nations 24, and among the Lydians in particular, it is deemed a matter of the greatest turpitude even for a man to be seen naked.

XI. The queen preserved the strictest silence; and, in the morning, having prepared some confidential

24 Among all the Barbarian nations.]-Plato informs us, that the Greeks had not long considered it as a thing equally disgraceful and ridiculous for a nian to be seen naked; an opinion, says he, which still exists amongst the greater part of the Barbarians.-Larcher.

To the above remark of Larcher may be added, that, according to Plutarch, it was amongst the institutes of Lycurgus, that the young women of Sparta should dance naked at their solemn feasts and sacrifices; at which time also they were accustomed to sing certain songs, whilst the young men stood in a circle about them, to see and hear them.-T,

dential servants for the occasion, she sent for Gyges. Not at all suspicious that she knew what had happened, he complied with the message, as he had been accustomed to do at other times, and appeared before his mistress 25. As soon as he came into her presence, she thus addressed him: "Gyges, I submit two proposals to your choice; destroy Candaules, and take possession of me and of the Lydian kingdom, or expect immediate death. From your unqualified obedience to your master, you may again be a spectator of what modesty forbids: the king has been the author of my disgrace; you also, in seeing me naked, havė violated decorum; and it is necessary that one of you should die."Gyges, after he had somewhat recovered from his astonish

25

Appeared before his mistress.]-The wife of Candaules, whose name Herodotus forbears to mention, was, according to Hephæstion, called Nyssia. Authors are divided in their account of this Gyges, and of the manner in which he slew Candaules. Plato makes him a shepherd in the service of the Lydian king, who was possessed of a ring which he found on the finger of a dead man inclosed within a horse of bronze. The shepherd, learning the property which this ring had, to render him invisible when the seal was turned to the inside of his hand, got himself deputed to the court by his fellows, where he seduced the queen, and assassinated Candaules. Xenophon says he was a slave; but this is not inconsistent with the account of Plato, were it in other respects admissible. Plutarch pretends, that Gyges took up arms against Candaules, assisted by the Milesians. The opinion of Herodotus seems preferable to the rest: born in a city contiguous to Lydia, no person could be better qualified to represent what related to that kingdom.-Larcher.

astonishment, implored her not to compel him to so delicate and difficult an alternative. But when he found that expostulations were vain, and that he must either kill Candaules, or die himself by the hands of others, he chose rather to be the survivor. "Since my master must perish," he replied, "and, notwithstanding my reluctance, by my hands, tell me how your purpose shall be accomplished?" "The deed," she answered, “shall be perpetrated in that very place where he exhibited me naked; but you shall kill him in hiş sleep."

26 XII. Their measures were accordingly concerted: Gyges had no opportunity of escape, nor of evading the alternative proposed. At the approach of night, the queen conducted him to her chamber, and placed him behind the same door, with a dagger in his hand. Candaules was murdered in his sleep, and Gyges took immediate possession of his wife and of the empire. Of the above event, Archilochus 27 of Paros, who lived about

26 Upon the event recorded in this chapter, the firste booke of the old translation of Herodotus, before mentioned, Clio has this curious remark in the margin: "The Divil in old tyme a disposer of kingdomes, and since the Pope."-T.

27 Archilochus.]-As without these concluding lines the sense would be complete, many have suspected them to have been inserted by some copyist. Scaliger has reasoned upon them, as if Herodotus meant to intimate, that because Archi

lochus

about the same period, has made mention in some Trimeter Iambics.

XIII. A declaration of the Delphic oracle, confirmed Gyges in his possession of the sovereignty. The Lydians resented the fate of Candaules, and had recourse to arms. A stipulation was at length made betwixt the different parties, that if the oracle decided in favour of Gyges, he should continue on the throne; if otherwise, it should revert to the Heraclidæ. Although Gyges retained the supreme authority, the words of the oracle expressly

lochus makes mention of Gyges in his verses, he must have lived at the same period; but this by no means follows.

Of Archilochus, Quintilian remarks, that he was one of the first writers of Iambics; that his verses were remarkable for their ingenuity, their elegant style, and nervous sentiment. Book x. chap. 1.—He is also honourably mentioned by Horace, who confesses that he imitates him. See 19th Epistle, Book 1st. Ovid, if the Ibis be his, speaks too of the Parian Poet. Cicero, in his Tusculan Questions, says, that he lived in the time of Romulus. His compositions were so extremely licentious, that the Lacedæmonians ordered them to be removed from their city, aud Archilochus himself to be banished. He was afterwards killed in some military excursion, by a person of the name of Coracus. The reputation of Archilochus was such that the Pythians would not allow the man who killed him to enter the temple, till he had expiated his crime. Whoever wishes to have a more particular account of Archilochus, may consult Lilius Gyraldus de Poetar, Histor. dialog. ix. chap. 14. The fragments of this author may be found in Brunck's Analecta.

expressly intimated, that the Heraclidæ should be avenged in the person of the fifth descendant of Gyges. To this prediction, until it was ultimately accomplished, neither princes nor people paid the smallest attention. Thus did the Mermnadæ obtain the empire, to the injurious exclusion of the Heraclidæ.

XIV. Gyges, as soon as he was established in his authority, sent various presents to Delphi28, a considerable quantity of which were of silver. Among other marks of his liberality, six golden

goblets,

28 Presents to Delphi.]-Amongst the subjects of literary controversy betwixt Boyle and Bentley, this was one: Boyle defended Delphos, principally from its being the common usage: Bentley rejects Delphos as a barbarism, it being merely the accusative case of Delphi. He tells a story of a Popish Priest, who for thirty years had read mumpsimus in his Breviary, instead of sumpsimus; and, when a learned man told him of his blunder, replied, I will not change my old mumpsimus for your new sumpsimus. From a similar mistake in the old editions of the Bible in Henry the Eighth's time, it was printed Asson and Mileton; under Queen Elizabeth, it was changed into Asson and Miletum; but in the reign of James the First, it was rectified to Assos and Miletus.-T. See Bentley on Phalaris.*

* Delphi.]-Swift made a point of always writing Delphos; upon which Jortin facetiously remarks, that he should have submitted to reason, and received instruction from whatever quarter it came; from Wootton, from Bentley, or from Beelzebub.

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