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Updated: July 16, 2025
And nevertheless no person in Sardes, or even in Lydia, had beheld this redoubtable adversary, no person save one solitary being, who from the time of that encounter had kept his lips as firmly closed upon the subject as though Harpocrates, the god of silence, had sealed them with his finger, and that was Gyges, chief of the guards of Candaules.
On the news of the battle at Myonnesus Antiochus so completely lost his judgment, that in Europe he caused the strongly-garrisoned and well-provisioned fortress of Lysimachia to be evacuated by the garrison and by the inhabitants who were faithfully devoted to the restorer of their city, and withal even forgot to withdraw in like manner the garrisons or to destroy the rich magazines at Aenus and Maronea; and on the Asiatic coast he opposed not the slightest resistance to the landing of the Romans, but on the contrary, while it was taking place, spent his time at Sardes in upbraiding destiny.
The fall of the Median dynasty, with which the royal house of Lydia had been in close alliance since the Halys pact, was a disaster which Croesus, now king of Sardes in the room of Alyattes, was rash enough to attempt to repair.
'And I, replied Candaules, his eye illuminated with enthusiasm, 'if I possessed so rich a gem, I would enshrine it in my diadem, that I might exhibit it freely to the eyes of all men, in the pure light of the sun, that I might adorn myself with its splendour and smile with pride when I should hear it said: "Never did king of Assyria or Babylon, never did Greek or Trinacrian tyrant possess so lustrous a pearl as Candaules, son of Myrsus and descendant of Heracles, King of Sardes and of Lydia!
The Eupatridæ of Sardes, who hoped that the young king might, perchance, choose a wife from their family, the hetairæ of Athens, of Samos, of Miletus and of Cyprus, the beautiful slaves from the banks of the Indus, the blond girls brought at a vast expense from the depths of the Cimmerian fogs, were heedful never to utter in the presence of Candaules, whether within hearing or beyond hearing, a single word which bore any relation to Nyssia.
Croesus was brought to battle in the first days of the autumn. The engagement was indecisive, but the Lydians, having no mind to stay out the winter on the bleak Cappadocian highlands and little suspicion that the enemy would think of further warfare before spring, went back at their leisure to the Hermus valley, only to hear at Sardes itself that the Persian was hot in pursuit.
All they had ever dreamed of in their hope, their melancholy, and their despair, he possessed he, Candaules, poor tyrant of Sardes, who had only a few wretched coffers filled with pearls, a few cisterns filled with gold pieces, and thirty or forty thousand slaves, purchased or taken in war.
Were she but once to pass along the streets of Sardes with face unveiled, you might in vain pull your adorers by the lappet of their tunic, for none of them would turn his head, or, if he did, it would be to demand your name, so utterly would he have forgotten you!
These spectacles of magnificence would upon any other occasion have ravished the people of Sardes with delight, but their curiosity had been enlisted in another direction, and it was not without a certain feeling of impatience that they watched this portion of the procession file by.
Therefore let no vain scruples of fidelity cause you to hesitate. Think that I will make you King of Sardes, and that... I will love you if you avenge me. The blood of Candaules will be your purple, and his death will make for you a place in that bed.
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