Ring of Gyges

The Ring of Gyges /ˈdʒaɪˌdʒiːz/ (Ancient Greek: Γύγου Δακτύλιος, Gúgou Daktúlios, Attic Greek pronunciation: [ˈɡyːˌɡoː dakˈtylios]) is a hypothetical magic ring mentioned by the philosopher Plato in Book 2 of his Republic (2:359a–2:360d).^[1] It grants its owner the power to become invisible at will. Using the ring as an example, this section of the Republic considers whether a rational, intelligent person who has no need to fear negative consequences for committing an injustice would nevertheless act justly.

Depiction of Gyges discovering the ring, Ferrara, 16th century

The legends

Gyges of Lydia was a historical king, the founder of the Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings. Various ancient works—the most well-known being The Histories of Herodotus^[2]—gave different accounts of the circumstances of his acquisition of power.^[3] All, however, agree in asserting that he was originally a subordinate of King Candaules of Lydia, that he killed Candaules and seized the throne, and that he had either seduced Candaules' Queen before killing him, married her afterwards, or both.

In the recounting of the myth by Glaucon (Plato's older brother, as a character of the Republic), an unnamed ancestor of Gyges^[4][5] was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia. After an earthquake, a chasm was revealed in a mountainside where he was feeding his flock. Entering the chasm, he discovered that it was in fact a tomb with a bronze horse containing a corpse, larger than that of a man, who wore a golden ring, which he then pocketed. He discovered that by adjusting the ring, he gained the power of invisibility. He then arranged to become one of the king's messengers as to the status of the flocks. Arriving at the palace, he used his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen, and with her help, murder the king, and become king of Lydia himself.

The role of the legend in Plato's Republic

In the Republic, the tale of the ring of Gyges is described by the character of Glaucon, the brother of Plato. Glaucon asks whether any man could be so virtuous that he may resist the temptation of killing, robbing, raping, or generally doing injustice to whomever he pleased if he could do so remaining undetected. Glaucon wants Socrates to argue that it is beneficial for us to be just, independent of any consideration for our reputation.

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. 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.

Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. 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.

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. 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.

— Plato, Republic, 360b–d (Jowett trans.)

Though his answer to Glaucon's challenge is delayed, Socrates argues ultimately that justice does not derive from this social construct: the man who abused the power of the Ring of Gyges has in fact enslaved himself to his appetites, while the man who chose not to use it remains rationally in control of himself and is therefore happy (Republic 10:612b).

Cultural influences

• Cicero retells the story of Gyges in De Officiis to illustrate his thesis that a wise or good individual bases decisions on a fear of moral degradation as opposed to punishment or negative consequences. Cicero follows with a discussion of the role of thought experiments in philosophy. The hypothetical situation in question is complete immunity from punishment of the kind afforded to Gyges by his ring.^[6]
• J.R.R. Tolkien was familiar with Plato's myth^[7] and had possibly read part of the story's original text in Ancient Greek;^[8] the fable influenced his writing of his literary masterpiece The Lord of the Rings.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]}

See also

• Helm of Hades

References

1. Laird, A. (2001). "Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato's Republic". Journal of Hellenic Studies. 121: 12–29. doi:10.2307/631825. JSTOR 631825. S2CID 170951759.
2. Herodotus 1.7–13
3. Smith, Kirby Flower (1902). "The Tale of Gyges and the King of Lydia". American Journal of Philology. 23 (4): 361–387. doi:10.2307/288700. JSTOR 288700.
4. Plato. "Republic" (in Ancient Greek). Section 359d. τῷ [Γύγου] τοῦ Λυδοῦ προγόνῳ
5. Plato (1969). "Republic". Translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Book 10, Section 612b. Socrates refers to the ring as "the ring of Gyges" (τὸν Γύγου δακτύλιον). For this reason, the story is simply called "The Ring of Gyges".
6. De Officiis 3.38–39
7. Wood, Ralph C. (2003). The Gospel According to Tolkien. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-664-23466-9.
8. Nagy, Gergely (2007). Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Taylor & Francis. p. 513. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0.
9. West, Richard C. (2003-08-27). "Real-world myth in a secondary world: mythological aspects in the story of Beren and Lúthien". In Chance, Jane (ed.). Tolkien the Medievalist. Routledge. pp. 263–264. ISBN 978-1-134-43971-3. Retrieved 2024-01-11. The situation is full of resonances from other traditional tales: [...] the Ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic
10. Kreeft, Peter (2009-09-03). The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings. Ignatius Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-68149-531-6. As Plato used the Ring to contrast Gyges with Socrates, Tolkien uses the same Ring to contrast Gollum with Frodo [...]
11. Korpua, Jyrki (2021-05-10). The Mythopoeic Code of Tolkien: A Christian Platonic Reading of the Legendarium. McFarland. p. 159. ISBN 978-1-4766-7288-5. [...] Tolkien's ring myth is the Platonic myth of Gyges from the Republic, [...]
12. Day, David (2019-10-08). An Encyclopedia of Tolkien: The History and Mythology That Inspired Tolkien's World. Simon and Schuster. pp. 302, 180–181. ISBN 978-1-64517-009-9. "Plato was extremely influential in Tolkien's mythopoetic approach to literature […]" (p. 302), "[...] as in the case of Gyges [...]" (p. 181)
13. Comstock, Gary (2013-01-03). Research Ethics: A Philosophical Guide to the Responsible Conduct of Research. Cambridge University Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-139-61884-7. "[...] the mythical golden ring of Gyges. [...] Yes, it's the same ring we see in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings [...]
14. Rogers, Brett M.; Stevens, Benjamin Eldon (2017). Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy. Oxford University Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-19-061006-7. The Ring has been compared to Gyges [...]'

External links

• Plato, Republic Book 2, translated by Benjamin Jowett (1892).
• The Ring of Gyges Analysis by Bernard Suzanne (1996).