In the narrative of Nicolaus it is the curse which Ardys uttered upon the murderers of the first Dascylus, and the late vengeance for this murder which comes upon the descendants of Sadyattes, and causes the overthrow of the kingdom. But the guilt of Sadyattes is not the only cause: Ardys himself sinned by the excessive confidence which he reposed in Dascylus; and Candaules goes further still in his blind confidence in the grandson of Dascylus; he gives him land; he sets him above all others; he commissions the youth of twenty years to bring home the royal bride to her marriage. The same fault of excessive and misplaced confidence, though in another direction, is in Herodotus the cause of the overthrow of Candaules and his house. In a third version, given by Plutarch, we still find the same motive. When Heracles had slain Hippolyte (the queen of the Amazons), he gave her battle-axe to Omphale. The kings who ruled over Lydia after Omphale, had carried this battle-axe, each handing it to his successor, down to Candaules, who disregarded it and gave it to his favourite to carry; but this favourite in Plutarch is not Gyges.[772]
The relation into which Herodotus represents the wife of Candaules as entering, after her dishonour, with Gyges, the guard of her husband, appears to be founded on a similar story, which a legend ascribes to an ancestor of Gyges. Gyges, the forefather of Lydus, so we are told in Plato, was one of the shepherds of the king of the Lydians. After a severe storm of rain and an earthquake, the earth opened where he was keeping his cattle. Out of curiosity he descended into the gulf, and saw marvellous things: among others a brazen horse with windows, through which he saw a dead man of superhuman size, who had nothing on beyond a golden ring on his finger. This ring Gyges took, and climbed out. When he sat among the rest of the shepherds in order to give the king the monthly account of the condition of the flocks, with this ring on his finger, he happened to turn the stone on it towards himself. Then he perceived that the others did not see him, and spoke of him as though absent. When he turned the stone away from himself, he was again seen by them. Having assured himself of this fact, he procured that he should be chosen among the messengers sent to the king. There he won the favour of the queen, united with her for the overthrow of the king, slew him, and seized the throne.[773]