¹ In addition to Hdt. 1.8–14, our main source for Gyges is Nicolaus of Damascus (FGrHist 90 F 47). On the fraught question of Nicolaus’ debt to Xanthus of Lydia, see Fritz, K. von, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung 1 (Berlin, 1967), 348–77Google Scholar. For the dates of Gyges (before 664–no later than 644/3 b.c.), see Cogan, M. and Tadmor, H., ‘Gyges and Assurbanipal: a study in literary transmission’, Orientalia 46 (1977), 65–85Google Scholar; Spalinger, A.J., ‘The date of the death of Gyges and its historical implications’, JAOS 98 (1978), 400–9Google Scholar. I follow Spalinger's dating, though Parker, V., Untersuchungen zum Lelantinischen Krieg und verwandten Problemen der frühgriechischen Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1997), 76 nGoogle Scholar. 320 warns that we can only date the death of Gyges to sometime shortly after 650 b.c.; see now Payne, A. and Wintjes, J., Lords of Asia Minor: An Introduction to the Lydians (Wiesbaden, 2016), 31–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² On the Lydian dedications, see Kerschner, M., ‘Lydische Weihungen in griechischen Heiligtümern’, in Naso, A. (ed.), Stranieri e non cittadini nei santuari greci (Florence, 2006), 253–91Google Scholar and Kaplan, P., ‘Dedications to Greek sanctuaries by foreign kings in the eighth through sixth centuries b.c.e.’, Historia 55 (2006), 129–52Google Scholar.

³ Thus the translations of e.g. Powell and Godley. Neither How and Wells nor Asheri is explicit in how they take the form. Creuzer, G.F. and Bähr, J.C.F., Herodoti Halicarnassensis Musae (Leipzig, 1856), 35Google Scholar translate ‘a Delphis vocatur Gygaeum’.

⁴ Whether Γυγαίη is in origin an adjective (‘the Gygaean lake’) or a noun (‘the lake Gygaiē’) is unclear (though Strabo 13.4.5 uses Γυγαίη unambiguously as a noun), but it was evidently understood as the former by the Romans (e.g. Prop. 3.11 Lydia Gygaeo tincta puella lacu, and cf. Plin. HN 5.111), whence our familiar ‘Gygaean lake’.

⁵ On the suffix, see Keurentjes, M., ‘The Greek patronymics in -(ί)δας/(ί)δης’, Mnemosyne 50 (1997), 385–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues that its use to form patronymics is an extension of the role of the element -ιδ- in forming gentilics and demotics. Unrelated to the present case is the use, largely restricted to iambus and comedy, of patronymics in -(ί)δης to identify people as belonging to categories or character types, for which see G. Meyer, Die stilistische Verwendung der Nominalkomposition im griechischen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der διπλᾶ ὀνόματα (Leipzig, 1923), 140–6. I find implausible the arguments advanced in Guasti, D., ‘Pittaco ζοφοδορπίδαις e la storia dei sostantivi in -ίδης’, Graeco-Latina Brunensia 22 (2017), 57–67Google Scholar.

⁶ A. Dale, ‘walwet and kukalim: Lydian coin legends, dynastic succession, and the chronology of Mermnad kings’, Kadmos 54 (2015 [2016]), 151–66.

⁷ As Dale (n. 6) notes, it is now generally agreed that walwet identifies Alyattes and, given that certain kukalim coins were evidently minted after some walwet coins, the kukalim series cannot predate the reign of Alyattes. For the punch-links between kukalim and walwet coins, see Dale (n. 6), citing R.W. Wallace, ‘kukaliṃ, walwet, and the Artemision deposit: problems in early Anatolian electrum coinage’, in P. van Alfen (ed.), Agoranomia: Studies in Money and Exchange Presented to John H. Kroll (New York, 2006), 37–48. Incidentally, Poll. Onom. 3.87 (quoted above), unknown to me at the time of writing Dale (n. 6), would seem to confirm the interpretation of kukalim set forth there, with Γυγάδας χρυσός transparently reflecting an original ‘gold [i.e. electrum] (coin) of the descendant of Gyges’.

⁸ Text 1 line 4 in Gusmani, R., Lydisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1964), 250Google Scholar. Following Yakubovich, I., ‘An agreement between the Sardians and the Mermnads in the Lydian language?’, IF 122 (2017), 265–93, at 279–80Google Scholar, the ‘endingless’ forms in -l (e.g. manelim, artymalim and kukalim) might instead be genitive singular, though this does not affect the interpretation offered here.

⁹ None of the coinage issued by Croesus (the so-called ‘Croeseids’, something of a misnomer, as the universal form attested in antiquity was simply Κροίσειοι, sc. στατῆρες; cf. Poll. Onom. 3.87, quoted above) bears any legend whatsoever.

¹⁰ The backdating of Alyattes’ accession is based on reanalysis of the stratigraphy of the Artemision deposit (the source of many walwet and kukalim coins) to the third quarter of the seventh century, for which see the references in Dale (n. 6), 158–60 and M. Kerschner, ‘Das Artemision von Ephesos in geometrischer und archaischer Zeit. Die Anfänge des Heiligtums und sein Aufstieg zu einem Kultzentrum von überregionaler Bedeutung’, in T. Georges (ed.), Ephesos: Die antike Metropole in Spannungsfeld von Religion und Bildung (Tübingen, 2017), 3–67, at 45–51, 56–60. The earlier date for Alyattes integrates well with Wallace's recent reassessment of the accession of Croesus to c.587–582: Wallace, R.W., ‘Redating Croesus: Herodotean chronologies, and the dates of the earliest coinages’, JHS 136 (2016), 168–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ For the rise of Lydia under Alyattes, cf. M. Kerschner, ‘The Lydians and their Ionian and Aiolian neighbours’, in N. Cahill (ed.), The Lydians and their World (Istanbul, 2010), 247–65.

¹² On the location of the Lydian dedications, see Parke, H.W., ‘Croesus and Delphi’, GRBS 25 (1984), 209–32Google Scholar; Kerschner (n. 2); Kaplan (n. 2); Scott, M., Delphi and Olympia: The Spatial Politics of Panhellenism in the Archaic and Classical Periods (Cambridge, 2010), 45–6Google Scholar.

¹³ Though the extent of contacts between Corinth and Sardis has been questioned: cf. Salmon, J.B., Wealthy Corinth (Oxford, 1984), 225Google Scholar; Kaplan (n. 2), 148. For the chronology of this period, and the synchronism of Periander and Alyattes, see Parker, V., ‘Zur griechischen und vorderasiatischen Chronologie des sechsten Jahrhunderts’, Historia 42 (1993), 385–417, at 389–97Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Cf. Scott (n. 12), 45–6.

¹⁵ The treasury was probably built in the late seventh/early sixth century (thus postdating Cypsilus himself), which again accords with the reigns of Alyattes and Periander (the latter traditionally dated to c.627–585). For the date of the treasury. see E. Østby, ‘Delphi and archaic Doric architecture in the Peloponnese’, in A. Jacquemin (ed.), Delphes cent ans après la grande fouille (Athens, 2000), 239–62, at 241–2.

¹⁶ Thus Asheri comments ad loc.: ‘information typically provided by Delphic guides (Herodotus even keeps the Doric form)’.

¹⁷ Buck, C.D., ‘The interstate use of the Greek dialects’, CPh 8 (1913), 133–59Google Scholar.

¹⁸ We might expect Γυγάδαις if an Aeolic form, but there have always been problems with the masculine a-stem nominative singulars in -αις in the Lesbian poets. As has often been noted, we never find this in Lesbian inscriptions, which regularly show the expected -ᾱς (cf. E.-M. Hamm, Grammatik zu Sappho und Alkaios [Berlin, 1958], 24–5, §49; W. Blümel, Die aiolischen Dialekte [Göttingen, 1982], 74–5, §86). Motivating an analogically marked masculine a-stem nominative is not transparent (we cannot posit a general shift -ᾱς > -αις on analogy with the regular -ᾰνς > -αις in the face of e.g. the feminine genitive singular in -ᾱς). The source of an analogically marked masculine nominative could be identified as the masculine nominative of athematic participles such as e.g. κέρναις, where -αις is the expected outcome of *κέρνα-ντς (contrast thematic κέρνᾱν <*κέρνα-ων in IG XII 2.1). But the lack of attestation of such an analogical reflex in the inscriptions means that the old suggestion of -αις as a hyper-Aeolicism introduced in the (post-?)Alexandrian transmission cannot be ruled out (for which, cf. Blümel [this note] and G. Liberman, Alcée: fragments (Paris, 2002²), 1.xliii n. 137 with further references).

¹⁹ Namely Magnes of Smyrna, on whom see West, M.L., ‘Magnes of Smyrna: a Greek poet at the court of Gyges’, in Hellenica: Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought (Oxford, 2011), 1.344–52Google Scholar.

²⁰ Cf. the prestige value attached to all things Lydian in the Lesbian poets. Here we should recall that ‘the Lydians’ gave Alcaeus and his faction 2000 staters (fr. 69 V.). Assuming that the historical context for the relevant poem comes from a period predating Pittacus’ election as aisymnētēs, traditionally dated to 597/6 (Diog. Laert. 1.75; Plut. Sol. 14.7), then Alyattes would have occupied the throne in Lydia at the relevant period.

²¹ West, S., ‘Herodotus’ epigraphical interests’, CQ 35 (1985), 278–305, at 303–4Google Scholar.

²² Thonemann, P., ‘Croesus and the oracles’, JHS 136 (2016), 152–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ N. Papazarkadas, ‘Two new epigrams from Thebes’, in id. (ed.), The Epigraphy and History of Boeotia: New Finds, New Prospects (Leiden and Boston, 2014), 223–51.

²⁴ Thonemann's argument for a post-mortem dedication commemorating a fallen warrior is, in part, predicated on his supplement ἀρετ[ᾶς τε πάθας ἀνεθε̄́́κεν in line 5 of the epigram, which in turn is suggested by Herodotus’ ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν πάθην at 1.52. Though ingenious and highly plausible, there is a certain amount of circular reasoning here.