[421] Herodot. i, 13. τούτου τοῦ ἔπεος ... λόγον οὐδένα ἐποιεῦντο, πρὶν δὴ ἐπετελέσθη. In this curious legend, which marks the commencement of the dynasty called Mermnadæ, the historical kings of Lydia,—we cannot determine how much, or whether any part, is historical. Gygês was probably a real man, contemporary with the youth of the poet Archilochus; but the name Gygês is also an heroic name in Lydian archæology. He is the eponymus of the Gygæan lake near Sardis; and of the many legends told respecting him, Plato has preserved one, according to which Gygês is a mere herdsman of the king of Lydia: after a terrible storm and earthquake, he sees near him a chasm in the earth, into which he descends and finds a vast horse of brass, hollow and partly open, wherein there lies a gigantic corpse with a golden ring. This ring he carries away, and discovers unexpectedly that it possesses the miraculous property of rendering him invisible at pleasure. Being sent on a message to the king, he makes the magic ring available to his ambition: he first possesses himself of the person of the queen, then with her aid assassinates the king, and finally seizes the sceptre.[422] [422] Plato, Republ. ii, p. 360; Cicero, Offic. iii, 9. Plato (x, p. 612) compares very suitably the ring of Gygês to the helmet of Hadês. The legend thus recounted by Plato, different in almost all points from the Herodotean, has this one circumstance in common, that the adventurer Gygês, through the favor and help of the queen, destroys the king and becomes his successor. Feminine preference and patronage is the cause of his prosperity. Klausen has shown[423] that this “aphrodisiac influence” runs in a peculiar manner through many of the Asiatic legends, both divine and heroic. The Phrygian Midas, or Gordius, as before recounted, acquires the throne by marriage with a divinely privileged maiden: the favor shown by Aphroditê to Anchisês, confers upon the Æneadæ sovereignty in the Troad: moreover, the great Phrygian and Lydian goddess Rhea or Cybelê has always her favored and self-devoting youth Atys, who is worshipped along with her, and who serves as a sort of mediator between her and mankind. The feminine element appears predominant in Asiatic mythes: Midas, Sardanapalus, Sandôn, and even Hêraklês,[424] are described as clothed in women’s attire and working at the loom; while on the other hand the Amazons and Semiramis achieve great conquests. [423] See Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, pp. 34, 110, etc: compare Menke, Lydiaca, ch. 8, 9. [424] See the article of O. Müller in the Rheinisch. Museum für Philologie Jahrgang, iii, pp. 22-38; also Movers, Die Phönizier, ch. xii, pp. 452-470.