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THE GOLD OF GYGES

If mercenary troops are hired they must be paid and a medium must be
found to pay them. Mercenary soldiers cannot be paid in objects that are
difficult to carry and must be paid in media fit for the regular payment
of small sums on a daily basis. Mercenary soldiers could not be paid in
oxen or grain; they could not be paid by the oriental system of weighed
metals which requires the use of scales and was conceived mainly for
long distance traffic by big traders.

The key to the problem is given by the evidence pieced together in
another part of this work, to the effect that Queen Nitokris, spiritual
ruler of Egypt, dedicated a bundle of obelisks at the temple of Delphoi
in order to affect the Greek system of currency. Greek trade was not of
such importance to Egypt as to justify a direct intervention of Nitokris
to regulate the Greek system of currency. It is rather the pay of Greek
mercenary soldiers that would be of immediate concern to the Egyptian
rulers, since Greek hoplites played a major part in establishing and
defending the Saite Dynasty. When in 663 B.C. Psammetichos took up arms
against Assurbanipal in order to unify Egypt and make it independent of
foreign domination, Gyges came to his aid by sending him a body of
Ionian and Karian hoplite mercenaries. Since Ephoros (I 66) reports that
Psammetichos I sent for Greek mercenaries from Asia Minor and
Assurbanipal's inscription records that help was sent by Gyges to
Psammetichos, historians have concluded that it was Gyges who sent Greek
hoplites to Egypt and initiated the Egyptian kings to their use.
Apparently what Gyges did was to initiate his fellow upstart of Egypt
into the use of such forces which were the mainstay of his power. The
hoplite mercenaries proved effective and ever after the rulers of Egypt
relied on them. When the first Greek "brazen men" were hired by
Psammetichos I, he promised them land as reward (Her. I, 152; 154).
Apparently the use of Greek mercenaries in Egypt required the
establishment of a Greek city on the coast having a function similar to
that of Kyme, Kolophon, and Ephesos, in relation to the kingdom of
Phrygia, Maionia, and Lydia, respectively. This Greek settlement on the
coast was the "Milesian Fort," later supplanted by the city of
Naukratis. The allotment of land was the traditional Egyptian way of
rewarding soldiers, but it was hardly the best way to pay foreign
mercenaries who are usually persons driven abroad by poverty and aiming
to amass enough wealth to be able to return to their native land. Even
though Herodotos states that the Greek hoplites inhabited the parcels
allotted to them "for a long time" (I. 154), the kings of Egypt must
have been looking for a more attractive reward. The pay of foreign
troops had to consist of something acceptable in their land of origin.
The form of currency most commonly used in Egypt consisted of copper
ingots measured by weight; even after the Greek conquest introduced
silver coins in Egypt, the copper currency, now in the form of bronze
coins, remained the most common medium of exchange. A copper ingot had
the same value as an obelisk of the same weight. Once the weighed copper
ingots had become acceptable in Greece, the Greek mercenaries could be
paid in weighed bronze.

The dedication of the roasting spits to Delphoi must have taken place in
a period in which Nitokris-Rhodopis was the spiritual ruler of Egypt.
From epigraphical evidence we know that Nitokris was adopted by the
Divine Votaress in 654 B.C., became Divine Votaress around 640 B.C., and
died in 584 B.C. She is mentioned as Divine Consort in the reign of
Psammetichos I (664-610 B.C.), but not in that of his successor Neko
(610-594 B.C.). She adopted the daughter of king Psammetichos II in 593
B.C. and thereby entered into a relation of quasi-marriage with him.

The action of Queen Nitokris in setting up her obelisks at Delphoi may
be linked with that of king Gyges of Lydia sending to the temple
offerings of silver and gold. Both the Mermnad dynasty of Lydia and the
Saite Dynasty of Egypt were dynasties of usurpers who based their power
on the service of Greek mercenary hoplites and pursued a parallel
foreign policy. Both monarchies had close relations with the sanctuary
of Delphoi and were interested in reforming the Greek monetary system.
In the Greek mind the figure of Gyges' wife and that of Psammetichos
II's wife became combined; the reason was that they actually had common
traits. Since Herodotos discusses Gyges in relation with his offering to
Delphoi, he must have gathered his information about him at Delphoi, and
hence it is there that there must have taken place the contamination
between this figure and Nitokris.

Gyges must have met a problem in paying his mercenaries. According to
Phainias of Eresos, as quoted by Athenaios (VI 231e f) through
Theopompos, before the time of Gyges the temple of Delphoi did not
possess any gold or silver, but only utensil-money of bronze cauldrons.
By sending to Delphoi many silver offerings and gold bowls (Her. I 14),
Gyges may have tried to introduce the Greeks to the use of a currency of
weighed precious metals like the one used in the area of
Babylonian-Assyrian culture; in other words Gyges was trying to obtain a
result similar to that at which Nitokris' offering was aiming. The
offerings of Gyges may have stimulated in Greece the use of silver for
jewelry and for exchange, but since there were not gold mines in Greece,
gold did not circulate in any form in Greece up to the time of Kroisos
of Lydia, according to Phainias ( ). Kroisos was the first to coin
pieces of pure gold, but gold continued to be rather rare in Greece up
to the time of Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse (478-466 B.C.); according to
the same source, Hieron, after searching though Greece, found the gold
necessary to dedicate to Delphi a tripod and a Victory of "pure gold,"
that is, not of electrum, in the house of the Corinthian Architeles "who
had been buying up small amounts for a long time." This passage
indicates the relation between the offering to Delphoi and the monetary
circulation of Greece.

The solution to the problem of the gold for the Greek mercenaries was
finally found in the combination of the oriental system of currency of
weighed metals with the Greek electrum character. It may be that when
Gyges marched on Sardis at the head of a body of Karian mercenaries
hired with the wealth provided by Melas of Ephesos, their pay consisted
of electrum characters, since Ephesos was the center of production of
these objects; but when Gyges repaid his debt to Melas, he used electrum
in bulk. Already in the /Odyssey/ (IV 526) a hired watchman is promised
a salary (misjo|s) of two gold talanta|. The use of gold hair ornaments
in Kolophon begins with the Kolophonian mercenary service for the Lydian
kings;1 this may imply that the salary paid to the Kolophonians
consisted in some sort of apotropaic jewelry.

Radet points out that the legend of Gyges' miraculous ring2 refers to
the fact that the king had actually discovered a secret to achieve
power: "Gyges and his successors had in their possession a marvelous
talisman: economic science." But, as Ure rejoins, the talisman is
something more specific than economic science, it is the seal .
(sfragi|s) on the ring. On the basis of what has been said before on the
relation between seals and plaquettes, it is possible to conclude that
the real significance of the signet ring of Gyges lies in the royal
imprint used on the first coins.

The invention of coined money is ascribed by Herodotos to the Lydians.
Other sources list Pheidon of Argos, the Idaian Dactyls, and Demodike.
The claims of Pheidon will be considered in Part II. By Idaian Dactyls
one has to understand the priest of Kybele. Kybele is the old
Mother-Goddess of Phrygia whose main cult center became Sardis after the
establishment of the Lydian dynasty of the Mermnads.

The creation of mercenary armies stimulated the invention of coinage to
provide a convenient and attractive way of payment: this is the link
between coinage and tyranny. The Greek city states finally faced the new
danger by training their citizen armies to the hoplite tactics and
introducing service pay for the citizens. It is possible that the
transformation of Sparta into a barracks state dates from this time and
that the refusal to adopt coinage is one of the measures aimed at
preventing the danger of tyranny, the main concern in Spartan internal
and foreign policy. If there was such a person as Pheidon, tyrant of
Argos, and he was the author of the first coinage of Greece proper, that
of Aigina, he may have struck his coins at Aigina because in that
trading center he was recruiting his mercenaries, just as the Lydian
kings were recruiting theirs at Ephesos. It is perhaps not an accident
that the Athenian coinage began between 610 and 600 B.C, shortly after
what seems to have been the date of Kylon's attempt to establish a tyranny.

The secret of Gyges' power was his use of the electrum of Lydia to hire
mercenaries. The electrum was found in the primary deposits of Mount
Tmolos and in the secondary deposits of the river Paktolos; the capital
of Sardis was set in the very heart of the electrum district. All
tyrants depended on mines.

That the tyranny of Gyges was based on the use of wealth afforded by the
electrum deposits of Mount Tmolos and the River Paktolos, is stressed by
a long poetic tradition that begins with Homer and Archilochos.

Mireaux has pointed out that the following lines of the/ Odyssey/
referring to Aigisthos are intended as an innuendo to Gyges:

III 304 - 305

After he killed Agamemnon he reigned seven years over Mykene rich in
gold .bi (poluxrusoio), while the people were cowed under his rule.

According to Mireaux there is a reference to Gyges' many precious
offerings to Delphi in these lines:

III 273-275

Many thigh bones he burnt on the gods' holy altars, many precious
things he cast into fire, woven stuffs and gold, for success in a
great enterprise which he had never expected to carry out

The friendly relations between Gyges and Delphoi are probably the reason
why the sanctuary is practically ignored in the Homeric poems.

The Sophist Hippias claims (          ) that the word .us tyrannos was
not used by the Greeks before the time of Gyges, and he seems to imply
that it was the famous lines of Archilochos (fr. 25 Edmonds) that spread
its use:

|O|u moi ta Gugew tou poluxrusou melei .br oud|'|eile pw me
|Z|hlo|s,| oud|'|agaiaomai .br jewn erga, megalh|s| d|'|ouk erew
turannido|s.|

I do not care for the lot of Gyges, rich in gold, nor ever have
envied him. I am not jealous of the deeds of gods, and have no
desire for the mighty tyranny.

These lines had a dramatic impact on Greek thought, as indicated by the
long series of imitations in other poets:

Anth. Pal. IX 10

ou stergw bajulhiou|s| aroura|s .br .bi ouk olbon poluxruson|,| oia
Gugh|s

Ibid. VII 740,3

Gugh par iseuomeno|s|

Greg. Naz. I, 1, 10, l. 31

kan soi ta Gugou tou poluxrusou parh, br strefhs te panta th strofh
ths sfedonhs, br sigwn dunasths kan fronh ta Ludiou, br xrusw reonti
kai o Pershs soi Kuros .br katw kajezhj', o jronwn auxwn kratos.

But the meaning of the phrase is made clear by a passage of Pindar that
echoes Archilochos .us (Pyth. XI 50):

twn gar ana polin euriskwn ta mesa makroterw olbw tetalota
memfom'aisan turannidwn.

The phrase .bi ta mesa|, "the middle social, or economic level," is
opposed to ta Gugew|: by choosing the middle status that allows a
greater enjoyment of wealth (olbos) one renounces "the lot of tyrants"
reserved to those who have great wealth.

The phrase .bi ta Gugew has been understood as a reference to a supposed
coinage of Gyges as translated as "the coins of Gyges."

jeleis ta Gugew soi tou Ludiou genesjai.

These paraphrases prove among other things that ta Gugew does not mean
"the coins of Gyges, as Hogarth believed, but "the wealth of Gyges,"
better "the power given by Gyges' wealth." The phrase corresponds in
meaning to olbo|s, which does not mean wealth, but the enjoyment of
wealth or rather, here, the power that wealth gives. This wealth is the
wealth connected with tyranny as indicated also by this paraphrase of
Archilochos, in which the word .bi turanno|s is translated by anac
(Anac. 8 Edmonds):

ou moi melei ta Gugew tou Sardiwn anakto|s| ouj|'|aireeite xruso|s|
out|'|fjanw turanna|s.

The lines of Homer and those of Archilochos together are echoed by
Bacchylides' epinikion for the tyrant Hiero of Syracuse. The tyrant is
greeted with the words: "Ho for a thrice-blessed man who has received
from Zeus the gift of being the supreme ruler (pleistarxon) of the
Greeks and knows how to uncover the tower-high wealth hidden under the
mantle of darkness"; these words are a complete reversal of Archilochos'
thought. Then he echoes Homer in a reference to Hiero's many gold gifts
to Delphi:

Rife are the shrines with festal offerings of oxen, and rife also the
streets with hospitalities; and bright shines the flashing gold where
high and rich wrought tripods have been set before the temple in
Phoibos' great precinct. . . . (aristo|s| olbwn).

References

1. Phylarkhos, fr. Jacoby

2. Plato, .us Republic |II 359 D.

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