Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/238

 222 HISTORY OF GREECE. of the queen, then with her aid assassinates the king, and finally seizes the sceptre. 1 The legend thus recounted by Plato, different in almost all points from the Herodotean, has this one circumstance in common, that the adventurer Gyges, through the favor and help of tho queen, destroys the king and becomes his successor. Feminine preference and patronage is the cause of his prosperity. Klausen has shown 2 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 maid- en : the favor shown by Aphrodite to Anchises, confers upon the ^Eneadaa sovereignty in the Troad : moreover, the great Phrygian and Lydian goddess Rhea or Cybele 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, Sandon, and even Herakles, 3 are described as cloth- ed in women's attire and working at the loom ; while on the other hand the Amazons and Semiramis achieve great conquests. Admitting therefore the historical character of the Lydian kings called Mermnadae, beginning with Gyges about 715-690 B. c., and ending with Croesus, we find nothing but legend to explain to us the circumstances which led to their accession. Still less can we make out anything respecting the preceding kings, or determine whether Lydia was ever in former times connected with or dependent upon the kingdom of Assyria, as Ivtesias affirmed. 4 Nor can we certify the reality or dates of the old Lydian kings named by the native historian Xanthus, Alk'i- rnus, Kambles, Adramytes. 5 One piece of valuable information, 1 Plato, Republ. ii, p. 360 ; Cicero, Offic. iii, 9. Plato (x, p. 612> ?om pares very suitably the ring of GygGs to the helmet of Hades. 2 Sec Klausen, yEneas und die Pcnaten, pp. 34, 110, etc: compare Menke, I.ydiaca, ch. 8, 9. 3 See the article of O. Miillcr in the Khcinisch. Museum fur Philologie Jahrgang, iii, pp. 22-38 ; also Movers. Die Phonizicr, ch. xii, pp. 452-470. 4 Diodor. ii, 2. Niebuhr also conceives that Lydia was in early days a portion of the Assyrian empire (Kleine Schriftcn, p. 371). 8 Xanthi Fragment. 10, 12, 19, cd. Didot; Athenae. x, p. 415; Nikolaui Damasc. p. 36, Orelli.