1861.] 
Gyges ’ ring in Plato and Niztbni. 
151 
Gyges ’ ring in Plato and Nizami. — By E. B. Cowell; M. A. 
There is a well known legend in the second book of Plato’s Re- 
public, which Glaucon relates to support his hypothesis, that injustice 
would he superior to justice, if the perpetrator could he always sure 
of impunity, — we refer to the curious story of Gyges and his ring. 
Herodotus in his history of the rise of the Lydian dynasty of the 
Mermnadce follows a very different account, both being probably 
merely popular legends, such as so constantly spring up in an unhis- 
torical age, to supply a plausible explanation of past events, the true- 
character of which has been unobserved or forgotten. Different 
ancient authors follow one or the other account as best may suit 
their purpose, but the many subsequent repetitions of Gyges’ history 
are no doubt all to he traced to the two original sources as we find 
them in Herodotus and Plato ; and the proverbial “ Gyges’ ring’' 
plainly proves which of the two versions laid the deeper hold on the 
popular imagination. 
In the second part of Nizami’s Sikandar-namah* (frequently called 
the Sikandar N&mah-i Bahri), there occurs a curious account of a 
council held in the court of the young Sikandar by the principal 
philosophers of Greece, where time and space are set at nought as 
triumphantly as by Goethe’s Faust, when he marries Trojan Helen— 
Hermes, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Porphyry, t being all repre- 
sented as fellow citizens and contemporaries. Each tells his tale 
or gives his moral advice, hut, except in the case of Plato, we find 
nothing personally appropriate in the speeches attributed. It might 
indeed be an interesting question, how far the orientals have any 
real knowledge of Greek philosophers beside Plato and Aristotle, — 
for certainly although they often quote Pythagoras and others, the 
quotations are generally mere commonplace moralities which are only 
fathered on venerable names to secure to them a spurious weight 
* Pp. 55-58, in Dr. Sprenger’s edition in the Bibliotheca Indies. 
+ The other two who make up the ‘seven sages,’ are Walis ( Mrt'J ) 
(Thales ?) and Balinas ( ejALL ) . There are some interesting remarks on the 
latter name (also written , ) in Sir W. Ouseley’s Travels, Yol. I. p. 62. 
De Sacy identifies him with Apollonius of Tyana. Jami in his Khiradnamah 
adds instead Pythagoras and Galen to the five mentioned in the text. 
