![]() If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust they would both come at last to the same point. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men. Glaucon posits: Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. Hence, if that sanction were removed, one’s moral character would evaporate. ![]() ![]() Glaucon suggests that morality is only a social construction, the source of which is the desire to maintain one’s reputation for virtue and justice. In Republic, Glaucon asks whether any man can be so virtuous that he could resist the temptation of being able to perform any act without being known or discovered. Arriving at the palace, he uses his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen, and with her help he murders the king, and becomes king of Lydia himself. Soon discovering that the ring gives him the power to become invisible, Gyges then arranges to be chosen as one of the messengers who report to the king on the status of the flocks. The giant’s corpse wears a golden ring, which Gyges pockets. He enters the cave and discovers that it was in fact a tomb with a bronze horse and the armour of a giant. After an earthquake, Gyges discovers a cave in a mountainside near where he was feeding his flock. Glaucon tells the story of Gyges, a mere shepherd in the service of the ruler, Candaules of Lydia. He tells of a conversation between Glaucon and Socrates in which Glaucon poses a moral dilemma. Plato, writing in the 5th century, recounts the myth of Gyges with a different emphasis. Thus Herodotus accounts for the fall of the Lydian kingdom and accounts for the rise of the Persian Empire and her later assaults on Greece. With rich tribute to the oracle he inquired if he were the rightful king of Lydia, to which the Oracle replied he was, but his dynasty would only last for five generations.īy the 6th century, the King Croesue went to battle against the Persian army, believing himself to be invincible but was overpowered. With the Queen’s help he succeeded and managed to quash the resultant civil war and hold the thone by sending tribute to the Oracle at Delphi in Greece. Gyges agreed to assasinate the king and take the throne. She did not say a word to her husband but she summoned Gyges and gave him the ultimatum, that he may suffer execution for what he had seen, or kill her husband and take the throne and herself to wife. The Queen discerned she had been observed when Gyges left the room later that night. The king persuaded Gyges to hide in his bedchamber to observe his wife disrobing, that he too may appreciate her unsurpassed beauty. In Herodotus’ tale, Gyges was bodyguard to the king Candaules, who suffered “ uxoriousness” or extreme love of his wife, believing her to be the most beautiful woman on earth. He was the founder of the third Mermnad dynasty of kings of Lydia descendents of the gods, Zeus and Hercules and forefather of Croeseus.Ĭroeseus was a king of unsurpassed wealth and power, but the last of his line and the one who succumbed to the Persian Empire. Herodotus tells the story of Gyges, King of Lydia in the 8th century BC.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |