Candaules' Wife

chapter 3 Herodotus on Stage: The Modern Greek Play “Candaules’ Wife” by Margarita Liberaki

Ariadne Konstantinou1

While the Greek historian Herodotus is no doubt remembered today as the “father of history”, having bequeathed us with his Histories in nine books, nar- rating the events that culminate with the war between the Greeks and the Per- sians, it requires no professional reader of the Histories today to recognize that the work is infused with digressions that a modern historian might choose not to include in a historiographical work. These stories are often of geographi- cal, ethnological, anthropological or similar nature. The digressions have long been thought as central enough to merit an independent discussion on their role within the Herodotean oeuvre as a whole. One such story, in fact the first one in the Histories, is also the story about the Lydian king Candaules, his wife, and his bodyguard Gyges. The story appears after the proem in book one (1.6-12), as the first story of the Lydian logos (1.6-94), which focuses on King Croesus.2 Candaules, the Lydian king of the Heraclid dynasty, falls in love with his own wife.3 He urges Gyges, his favorite bodyguard, to see her naked so he may believe his claim. At Candaules’ orders, Gyges hides behind the door of the royal bedchamber. Yet, after he has seen the queen naked, the queen catches sight of Gyges while he exits. She recognizes the plot against her, and decides to get back at her husband. The following day she summons Gyges and gives him the option to either die, or kill Candaules, take her as his new wife, and become the Lydian

1 All translations from Ancient and Modern Greek are my own. Translations from Liberaki’s play aim at clarity rather than elegance, and by no means attempt to convey literary and theatrical nuances of the original. I am thankful to Nikiforos Papandreou for supplying me with a copy of Theatrika Tetradia 31 and the permission to reproduce a photo from the 1997 performance of Η γυναίκα του Κανδαύλη by the Πειραματική Σκηνή της Τέχνης in Thessaloniki http://www.piramatikiskini.gr, directed by Nikos Chatzipapas. 2 For a concise introduction to Herodotus’ Book 1, see David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, and Aldo Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus. Books i–iv (trans. Barbara Graziosi, Matteo Rossetti, Carlotta Dus, and Vanessa Cazzato) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 59–71, including a summary at 69–71. 3 Herodotus 1.8.1: οὗτος δὴ ὦν ὁ Kανδαύλης ἠράσθη τῆς ἑωυτοῦ γυναικός, “Now this Candaules fell in love with his own wife”.

78 Konstantinou ruler. After some hesitation, Gyges chooses to murder his master. According to the queen’s plan, he is to hide in their bedchamber, behind the same door he was hidden the night before, and kill Candaules in his sleep with a knife. And thus was done. Gyges took the queen as his wife, became the ruler of Lydia for thirty-eight years, and the power passed on to the dynasty of the Mermnadae, who ruled for five generations, until the reign of Croesus. The story of Candaules, his wife and Gyges has been popular from antiquity onwards. It is a story of voyeurism and vengeance, and the main figures are placed before a moral choice, whose outcome exposes both the virtues and the vices of their characters. As such, the story has sparkled the imagination of generations of readers and artists, and Herodotus’ narrative served as the source for many subsequent treatments from antiquity until today. A some- what different version of the story, in which only Gyges appears, is also told in Plato’s Republic (359d-360b), and other ancient authors treated the subject as well.4 In 1950, scholars identified a papyrus fragment unearthed in Egypt as belonging to a “Gyges-tragedy”.5 While some classicists argue that the play may be from the period of Aeschylus, and hence might predate Herodotus, others date it to the fourth century bce or the Hellenistic period, in which case Herodotus might have served as one of its sources. This later dating seems to have become the consensus view today, though some scholars still prefer not to take a stance on the debate, mainly because the preserved fragment is so short. The story as it appears in Herodotus is of course written in prose, yet, as it has already been argued, its direct speeches, structure, and moral dilemma seem to resemble ancient Greek tragedies and their division into episodes.6

4 On Plato’s version, see Andrew Laird, “Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato’s Republic”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001) 12–29. Addi- tional ancient references to Gyges include Archilochus fr. 19 (quoted by Plutarch), Nicolaus of Damascus FGrHist 90 F 47, and Photius, Bibliotheca, codex 190, which preserves several alternative names for Herodotus’ unnamed queen: Nysia, Klytia, and Abro. 5 For the text and its dating, see TrGF ii Adespota F 664. For a comparison of the fragment and Herodotus’ story, see Roger Travis, “The Spectation of Gyges in P. Oxy. 2382 and Herodotus Book 1”, Classical Antiquity 19 (2000) 330–59. On Herodotus and tragedy more generally, see Suzanne Said, “Herodotus and Tragedy”, in Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (eds.), Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J.F. De Jong, and Hans Van Wees (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 117–47, especially at 132–4 (on the “Gyges-tragedy”), and Jasper Griffin, “Herodotus and Tragedy”, in Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 46–59. 6 On dramatic elements in the Lydian logos, including in the story of Candaules and Gyges, see Charles C. Chiasson, “Herodotus’ Use of Attic Tragedy in the Lydian Logos”, Classical Antiq- uity 22 (2003) 5–35, especially at 19–24.