The Ring of Gyges the Lydian¹

(Is any Man Intrinsically Just?)

(From Plato’s ‘’Republic’’)

GYGES WAS A SHEPHERD in the service of the ruler at that time of Lydia, and after a great deluge of rain and an earthquake the ground opened and a chasm appeared in the place where he was pasturing, and he saw and wondered and went down into the chasm. And the story goes that he beheld other marvels there and a hollow bronze horse with little doors, and he peeped in and saw a corpse within, as it seemed, of more than mortal stature, and there was nothing else but a gold ring on its hand, which he took off, and so went forth. And when the shepherds held their customary assembly to make their monthly report to the king about the flocks, he also attended, wearing the ring. So as he sat there he chanced that he turned the collet of the ring toward himself, toward the inner part of his hand, and when this too, place he became invisible to those who sat by him and they spoke of him as absent, and he was amazed, and again fumbling with the ring turned the collet outward and so became visible. On noting this he experimented with the ring to see if it possessed this virtue, and he found the result to be that when he turned the collet inward he became invisible, and when outward visible, and becoming aware of this he immediately managed things so that he became on of the messengers who went up to the king, and on coming there he seduced the king’s wife and with her aid set upon the king and slew him and possessed his kingdom.

If now there should be two such rings, and the just man should put on one and the unjust the other, no one could be found, it would seem, of such adamantine temper as to persevere in justice and endure to refrain his hands from the possessions of others and not touch them, though he might with impunity take what he wished even from the market place, and enter into houses and lie with whom he pleased, and slay and loose from bonds whomsoever he would, and in all other things conduct himself among mankind as the equal of a god. And in so acting he would do no differently from the other man, but both would pursue the same course. And yet this is a great proof, one might argue, that no one is just of his own will but only from constraint, in the belief that justice is not his personal good, inasmuch as every man, when he supposes himself to have the power to do wrong, does wrong. For that there is far more profit for him personally in injustice than in justice is what every man believes, and believes truly, as the proponent of this theory will maintain. For if anyone who had got such a license within his grasp should refuse to do any wrong or lay his hands on others’ possessions, he would be regarded as most pitiable and a great fool by all who took note of it, though they would praise him before one another’s faces deceiving on another because of their fear of suffering injustice. So much for this point.

Endnotes

¹ The Collected Dialogues of Plato (ed. Edith Hamilton, Huntington Cairns) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 607-08. ⇑