King Candaules

After a little while, Candaules, doomed to misfortune, spoke to Gyges thus: Nyssia, having surmised all of this, sent for Gyges at dawn the next morning and presented him with a choice: Gyges pleaded with Nyssia to reconsider, but he soon found this to be a hopeless cause, and reluctantly agreed to kill his master. They murdered Candaules in his bed on the very next night. After being named king, Gyges legitimised his hold on power, which was still precarious, by securing a favourable declaration from a Delphic oracle.

The prophecy proved true, but by that time Gyges was dead. In recognition of the oracular endorsement, Gyges had a hoard of gold and silver sent to the shrine at Delphi. The delivery included, we are told, six golden mixing-bowls that weighed nearly kg when taken all together see Footnote 2.

No further details on the life of Nyssia are recorded. Modern scholarly opinion has Herodotus drawing on dramatic rather than historical sources, and it has been speculated that his story is based on a tragedy in five acts with three actors and a chorus [3]. Many alternative versions of the story circulated in antiquity. In this telling, Gyges is made to be a common shepherd who discovers a ring of invisibility while out pasturing his flocks.

With the fear of being apprehended and punished for immoral behaviour removed, the once loyal subject, conspires with Nyssia to murder Candaules and takes the throne for himself. Various oddities surrounding the discovery of the ring that I have omitted are summarised by James Adam [5]; for the other versions of the story see Wikipedia [6]. As for Candaules, his legacy is wrongly coloured by an association with the eponymous sexual practice of Candaulism.

The term was coined by the 19th century psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing to describe the practice in which a man reveals his female partner, or images of her, to others for their voyeuristic delight. While this certainly applies to the fictional Candaules, there is no reason to suppose that it is also true of the historical one.

The historical Candaules, supposing he even existed, was probably overthrown and murdered by Gyges. Any speculation beyond that is liable to enter into the realm of fantasy. The distinction between the fictional and historical Candaules is clear among classicists and Wikipedians alike, but the same cannot be said for the swinger community.

Media in category "Gyges in the bedchamber of King Candaules"

Indeed, a quick perusal of swinger websites and message boards reveals that this distinction is not clear. In all fairness, they can hardly be blamed for being ignorant of the etymological subtleties surrounding a term that was introduced as a label for a largely obscure swinger pastime. Jenny Greenteeth by Ross Hayes. Andy Stott, Time Zero. Shuffle Drones, Steve Roach Live. Bicameral Killers, Blackface DJs. The Medieval Christ Child.

Titled "King Candaules," the painting depicts a less magical telling of Candaules' fall and the rise of his usurper Gyges. Without the aid of a magical ring, Gyges spies the beautiful Queen Lydia from the doorway -- lusting after her body and her husband's power with an ferocity that will soon spill over into murder.

Etty was a regular attender at the Royal Academy's life class throughout his career. Candaules was completed and exhibited at the Royal Academy in Thus, unusually for a painting of the time, Candaules appears morally highly ambiguous, inviting the viewer to sympathise either with the sexually immoral Candaules, the murderous Nyssia or the voyeuristic Gyges. From its unveiling, Candaules was condemned by the press as a cynical combination of a pornographic picture and a violent and unpleasant narrative, and there was near-unanimous consensus that the picture was inappropriate for public exhibition.

Despite the hostility with which Candaules was met on its exhibition, it was bought by Robert Vernon , who had made a fortune supplying horses to the military and was using the proceeds to amass a major art collection. Vernon presented his collection to the nation in , [30] although in the case of Candaules a painting so controversial becoming government property was a source of some embarrassment.

The condemnation with which Candaules was met meant it remained a controversial piece. When Samuel Carter Hall was choosing works to illustrate his newly launched The Art Journal , he considered it important to promote new British artists, even if it meant illustrations which some readers considered pornographic or offensive. In Hall secured reproduction rights to the paintings which Vernon had given to the nation but declined to distribute reproductions of Candaules , despite his willingness to publish reproductions of other provocative Etty nudes such as Female Bathers Surprised by a Swan.

Shortly after Candaules was exhibited Etty, needled by repeated attacks from the press on his supposed tastelessness, indecency and lack of creativity, decided to produce an explicitly moral piece. I have seen the gangs of workmen strolling round, and I know that their artistic interest in studies of the nude is emphatically embarrassing. Interest in Etty declined after his death as new movements , particularly the Pre-Raphaelites and Aestheticism , came to characterise painting in Britain, and by the end of the 19th century the cost of all his paintings had fallen below their original prices.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The hostile reception met by The Knight Errant when first painted prompted Millais to cut the female figure's upper part from the canvas and repaint the work with its current appearance, in which the victim turns away from both the viewer and her rescuer and her facial expression cannot be seen.