is line was Gyges, who displaced the
dynasty which preceded him and established his own by a revolution
effected in a very remarkable manner. The circumstances were as
follows:

The name of the last monarch of the old dynasty--the one, namely, whom
Gyges displaced--was Candaules. Gyges was a household servant in
Candaules's family--a sort of slave, in fact, and yet, as such slaves
often were in those rude days, a personal favorite and boon companion
of his master. Candaules was a dissolute and unprincipled tyrant. He
had, however, a very beautiful and modest wife, whose name was Nyssia.
Candaules was very proud of the beauty of his queen, and was always
extolling it, though, as the event proved, he could not have felt for
her any true and honest affection. In some of his revels with Gyges,
when he was boasting of Nyssia's charms, he said that the beauty of
her form and figure, when unrobed, was even more exquisite than that
of her features; and, finally, the monster, growing more and more
excited, and having rendered himself still more of a brute than he was
by nature by the influence of wine, declared that Gyges should see for
himself. He would conceal him, he said, in the queen's bed-chamber,
while she was undressing for the night. Gyges remonstrated very
earnestly against this proposal. It would be doing the innocent
queen, he said, a great wrong. He assured the king, too, that he
believed fully all that he said about Nyssia's beauty, without
applying such a test, and he begged him not to insist upon a proposal
with which it would be criminal to comply.

The king, however, did insist upon it, and Gyges was compelled to
yield. Whatever is offered as a favor by a half-intoxicated despot to
an humble inferior, it would be death to refuse. Gyges allowed himself
to be placed behind a half-opened door of the king's apartment, when
the king retired to it for the night. There he was to remain while the
queen began to unrobe herself for retiring, with a strict injunction
to withdraw at a certain time which the king designated, and with the
utmost caution, so as to prevent being observed by the queen. Gyges
did as he was ordered. The beautiful queen laid aside her garments
and made her toilet for the night with all the quiet composure and
confidence which a woman might be expected to feel while in so sacred
and inviolable a sanctuary, and in the presence and under the
guardianship of her husband. Just as she was about to ret