Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/236

 220 HISTORY Of GREECE. which flowed down from Mount Tmolus towards the llermus, and brought with it considerable quantities of gold in its sands. To this cause historians often ascribe the abundant treasure be- longing to Croesus and his predecessors ; but Croesus possessed, besides, other mines near Pergamus j 1 and another cause of wealth is also to be found in the general industry of the Lydian people, which the circumstances mentioned respecting them seem to attest. They were the first people, according to Herodotus, who ever carried on retail trade ; and the first to coin money of gold and silver. 2 The archaeologists of Sardis in the time of Herodotus, a century after the Persian conquest, carried "very far back the antiquity of the Lydian monarchy, by means of a series of names which are in great part, if not altogether, divine and heroic. Herodotus gives us first, Manes, Atys, and Lydus, next, a line of kings beginning with Herakles, twenty-two in number, succeeding each other from father to son and lasting for 505 years. The first of this line of Herakleid kings was Agron, descended from Herakles in the fourth generation, Herakles, Alkceus, Ninus, Belus, and Agron. The twenty-second prince of this Herakleid family, after an uninterrupted succession of father and son during 505 years, was Kandaules, called by the Greeks Myrsilus the son of Myr- BUS : with him the dynasty ended, and ended by one of those curious incidents which Herodotus has narrated with his usual dramatic, yet unaffected, emphasis. It was the divine will that Kandaules should be destroyed, and he lost his rational judgment: having a wife the most beautiful woman in Lydia, his vanity could not be satisfied without exhibiting her naked person to Gyges son of Daskylus, his principal confidant and the commander of his guards. In spite of the vehement repugnance of Gyges, this reso- lution was executed ; but the wife became aware of the inexpiable affront, and took her measures to avenge it. Surrounded by her most faithful domestics, she sent for Gyges, and addressed him : " Two ways are now open to thee, Gyges : take which thou wilt. Either kill Kandaules, wed me, and acquire the kingdom of Lydia, or else thou must at once perish. For thou hast seen forbidden things, and either thou, or the man who contrived it for thee musl 1 Aristot. Mirahil. Auscultat 52. 2 Hcrodot. i, 94.