# Gyges — Histories character guide

> Gyges in Histories by Herodotus.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0002-book-i-clio

## Snapshot

A Lydian bodyguard who, ordered by his king to glimpse the queen naked, ends up taking the throne, the wife, and the blame for a dynasty's doom.

## Who they are

Gyges serves Candaules, a king so infatuated with his own wife that he insists his trusted spearman hide in the royal bedroom to admire her. When the queen catches him, she offers Gyges a stark choice: kill the king and marry her, or die on the spot. His reluctant usurpation opens Herodotus' Lydian log, and the Delphic oracle's warning that vengeance will fall on the fifth descendant hangs over everything the Mermnad kings do afterward.

## Links

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