Gyges

, or Gyes , a son of Cœlus and Terra, represented as having 50 heads and 100 hands. He, with his brothers, made war against the gods, and was afterwards punished in Tartar us. Ovid , Tristia , bk. 4 , poem 7, li. 18 .――A Lydian, to whom Candaules king of the country showed his wife naked. The queen was so incensed at this instance of imprudence and infirmity in her husband, that she ordered Gyges, either to prepare for death himself, or to murder Candaules. He chose the latter, and married the queen, and ascended the vacant throne, about 718 years before the christian era. He was the first of the Mermnadæ who reigned in Lydia. He reigned 38 years, and distinguished himself by the immense presents which he made to the oracle of Delphi. According to Plato, Gyges descended into a chasm of the earth, where he found a brazen horse, whose sides he opened, and saw within the body the carcase of a man of uncommon size, from whose finger he took a famous brazen ring. This ring, when put on his finger, rendered him invisible; and by means of its virtue, he introduced himself to the queen, murdered her husband, and married her, and usurped the crown of Lydia. Hero dot us , bk. 1 , ch. 8 .— ♦ Plato , Dialogues , bk. 10 , The Republic .— Valerius Maximus , bk. 7 , ch. 1 .— Cicero , De Officiis , bk. 3 , ch. 9 .――A man killed by Turnus in his wars with Æneas. Virgil , Æneid , bk. 9 , li. 762 .――A beautiful boy of Cnidos in the age of Horace. Horace , bk. 2 , ode 5, li. 30 . ♦ ‘Plutarch’ replaced with ‘Plato’