broadcloth and hardware. The town is compactly built of stone houses, with wooden balconies facing the main street, whence narrow lanes strike off into uninviting slums, and contains a fort and monastery. In the British expedition of 1904 Gyantse formed the first objective of the advance, and the force was besieged here in the mission post of Changlo for some time. The Tibetans made a night attack on the post, and were beaten off with some difficulty, but subsequently the British attacked and stormed the fort or jong. Under the treaty of 1904 a British trade agent is stationed at Gyantse.
GYGES, founder of the third or Mermnad dynasty of Lydian
kings, he reigned 687–652 B.C. according to H. Geizer, 690–657
B.C. according to H. Winckler. The chronology of the Lydian
kings given by Herodotus has been shown by the Assyrian
inscriptions to be about twenty years in excess. Gyges was the
son of Dascylus, who, when recalled from banishment in Cappadocia
by the Lydian king Sadyattes—called Candaules “the
Dog-strangler” (a title of the Lydian Hermes) by the Greeks—sent
his son back to Lydia instead of himself. Gyges soon became
a favourite of Sadyattes and was despatched by him to fetch
Tudo, the daughter of Arnossus of Mysia, whom the Lydian king
wished to make his queen. On the way Gyges fell in love with
Tudo, who complained to Sadyattes of his conduct. Forewarned
that the king intended to punish him with death, Gyges assassinated
Sadyattes in the night and seized the throne with the
help of Arselis of Mylasa, the captain of the Carian bodyguard,
whom he had won over to his cause. Civil war ensued, which
was finally ended by an appeal to the oracle of Delphi and the
confirmation of the right of Gyges to the crown by the Delphian
god. Further to secure his title he married Tudo. Many legends
were told among the Greeks about his rise to power. That
found in Herodotus, which may be traced to the poet Archilochus
of Paros, described how “Candaules” insisted upon showing
Gyges his wife when unrobed, which so enraged her that she gave
Gyges the choice of murdering her husband and making himself
king, or of being put to death himself. Plato made Gyges a
shepherd, who discovered a magic ring by means of which he
murdered his master and won the affection of his wife (Hdt. i.
8-14; Plato, Rep. 359; Justin i. 7; Cicero, De off. iii. 9).
Once established on the throne Gyges devoted himself to consolidating
his kingdom and making it a military power. The
Troad was conquered, Colophon captured from the Greeks,
Smyrna besieged and alliances entered into with Ephesus and
Miletus. The Cimmerii, who had ravaged Asia Minor, were
beaten back, and an embassy was sent to Assur-bani-pal at
Nineveh (about 650 B.C.) in the hope of obtaining his help against
the barbarians. The Assyrians, however, were otherwise
engaged, and Gyges turned to Egypt, sending his faithful Carian
troops along with Ionian mercenaries to assist Psammetichus in
shaking off the Assyrian yoke (660 B.C.). A few years later he
fell in battle against the Cimmerii under Dugdammē (called
Lygdamis by Strabo i. 3. 21), who took the lower town of Sardis.
Gyges was succeeded by his son Ardys.
See Nicolaus Damascenus, quoting from the Lydian historian Xanthus, in C. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, iii.; R. Schubert, Geschichte der Könige von Lydien (1884); M. G. Radet, La Lydie et le monde grec au temps de Mermnades (1892–1893): H. Gelzer, “Das Zeitalter des Gyges” (Rhein. Mus., 1875); H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, i. (1893); Macan’s edition of Herodotus. (A. H. S.)
GYLIPPUS, a Spartan general of the 5th century B.C.; he
was the son of Cleandridas, who had been expelled from Sparta
for accepting Athenian bribes (446 B.C.) and had settled at Thurii.
His mother was probably a helot, for Gylippus is said to have
been, like Lysander and Callicratidas, a mothax (see Helot).
When Alcibiades urged the Spartans to send a general to lead the
Syracusan resistance against the Athenian expedition, Gylippus
was appointed, and his arrival was undoubtedly the turning point
of the struggle (414 – 413). Though at first his long hair, his threadbare
cloak and his staff furnished the subject of many a jest, and
his harsh and overbearing manner caused grave discontent,
yet the rapidity and decisiveness of his movements, won the
sympathy and respect of the Syracusans. Diodorus (xiii. 28-32),
probably following Timaeus, represents him as inducing the
Syracusans to pass sentence of death on the captive Athenian
generals, but we need have no hesitation in accepting the statement
of Philistus (Plutarch, Nicias, 28), a Syracusan who
himself took part in the defence, and Thucydides (vii. 86), that
he tried, though without success, to save their lives, wishing to
take them to Sparta as a signal proof of his success. Gylippus
fell, as his father had done, through avarice; entrusted by
Lysander with an immense sum which he was to deliver to the
ephors at Sparta, he could not resist the temptation to enrich
himself and, on the discovery of his guilt, went into exile.
Thucydides vi. 93. 104, vii.; Plutarch, Nicias, 19, 21, 27, 28, Lysander, 16, 17; Diodorus xiii. 7, 8, 28-32; Polyaenus i. 39. 42. See Syracuse (for the siege operations), commentaries on Thucydides and the Greek histories.
GYLLEMBOURG-EHRENSVÄRD, THOMASINE CHRISTINE, Baroness (1773–1856), Danish author, was born on the 9th of
November 1773, at Copenhagen. Her maiden name was Buntzen.
Her great beauty early attracted notice, and before she was
seventeen she married the famous writer Peter Andreas Heiberg.
To him she bore in the following year a son, afterwards illustrious
as the poet and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg. In 1800 her
husband was exiled, and she obtained a divorce, marrying in
December 1801 the Swedish Baron K. F. Ehrensvärd, himself
a political fugitive. Her second husband, who presently adopted
the name of Gyllembourg, died in 1815. In 1822 she followed
her son to Kiel, where he was appointed professor, and in 1825
she returned with him to Copenhagen. In 1827 she first appeared
as an author by publishing her romance of The Polonius Family
in her son’s newspaper Flyvende Post. In 1828 the same journal
contained The Magic Ring, which was immediately followed
by En Hverdags historie (An Everyday Story). The success of
this anonymous work was so great that the author adopted
until the end of her career the name of “The Author of An
Everyday Story.” In 1833–1834 she published three volumes
of Old and New Novels. New Stories followed in 1835 and 1836.
In 1839 appeared two novels, Montanus the Younger and Ricida;
in 1840, One in All; in 1841, Near and Far; in 1843, A Correspondence;
in 1844, The Cross Ways; in 1845, Two Generations.
From 1849 to 1851 the Baroness Ehrensvärd-Gyllembourg was
engaged in bringing out a library edition of her collected works
in twelve volumes. On the 2nd of July 1856 she died in her son’s
house at Copenhagen. Not until then did the secret of her
authorship transpire; for throughout her life she had preserved
the closest reticence on the subject even with her nearest friends.
The style of Madame Ehrensvärd-Gyllembourg is clear and
sparkling; for English readers no closer analogy can be found
than between her and Mrs Gaskell, and Cranford might well
have been written by the witty Danish authoress.
See J. L. Heiberg, Peter Andreas Heiberg og Thomasine Gyllembourg (Copenhagen, 1882), and L. Kornelius-Hybel, Nogle Bemaerkninger om P. A. Heiberg og Fru Gyllembourg (Copenhagen, 1883).
GYLLENSTJERNA, JOHAN, Count (1635–1680), Swedish
statesman, completed his studies at Upsala and then visited
most of the European states and laid the foundations of that deep
insight into international politics which afterwards distinguished
him. On his return home he met King Charles X. in the Danish
islands and was in close attendance upon him till the monarch’s
death in 1660. He began his political career at the diet which
assembled in the autumn of the same year. An aristocrat by
birth and inclination, he was nevertheless a true patriot and
demanded the greatest sacrifices from his own order in the
national interests. He was therefore one of those who laboured
most zealously for the recovery of the crown lands. In the
Upper House he was the spokesman of the gentry against the
magnates, whose inordinate privileges he would have curtailed
or abolished. His adversaries vainly endeavoured to gain him
by favour, for as court-marshal and senator he was still more
hostile to the dominant patricians who followed the adventurous
policy of Magnus de la Gardie. Thus he opposed the French
alliance which de la Gardie carried through in 1672, and consistently
advocated economy in domestic and neutrality in
foreign affairs. On the outbreak of the war in 1675 he was the
