I was recently reading The Republic, by Plato, and when we came to the section about the ring of Gyges, my teacher claimed that this was the inspirition for the One Ring. I doubt he had any real evidence for this, but the story, or at least some aspects of it, are remarkably similar, so I get where he got the idea. Here's Plato's story:
According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.
The story is being told by a character who is trying to prove that people are naturally evil, and given the opportunity (a magic ring that allows one to do whatever they like without being caught) people will act evil. To put that another way: power makes people evil.
We see that both rings are invisibility rings, seem to have evil origins, and both cause evil.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Tolkien had read The Republic, probably in the original Greek, knowing him.
However, I also know that, at least, this wasn't Tolkien's origional inspiration. The ring wasn't even faintly evil in the first version of the Hobbit, published in 1937. In 1951 he changed it so that it worked better with The Lord of the Rings, which he was working on at the time.
So the question is: Was Tolkien inspired by the Ring of Gyges, or did he come up with a similar artifact on his own?
Disclaimer: I know that I'm generalizing a bit about the nature of the One Ring, and this is a loose analysis, so don't cite me as some sort of Plato expert. Also, please do not insult my teacher.
Answer
In order to understand this, it's first necessary to strip back what was added to the Ring later on, and focus on it as originally presented in the Hobbit; in particular the First Edition of the Hobbit.
As you've correctly observed, the sinister associations that we attribute to the Ring are just not there. It's not even "the Ring", it's "the ring". In particular, two mentions of "the master who ruled them" and "a last trick of the ring before it took a new master" - obvious references to Sauron - were not in the text of the First Edition.
The ring of the Hobbit is just a plain-old magical ring, it makes the wearer invisible but has no corrupting power and no evil origin.
That allows us to discount the ring of Gyges.
As for the Ring of the Nibelungs, Tolkien himself rejected that (Letter 229):
Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases.
This answer makes the case that Tolkien wasn't being entirely honest about this, but - and once again - if we go back to examine the ring as it was originally written, we have to admit that Tolkien does have a point.
In The History of the Hobbit John D Rateliff devotes an entire section of his commentary (Second Phase, Chapter V, commentary section (iii)) to examining sources for the ring, opening with the warning (emphasis is mine):
Tolkien's source for the ring has been much debated. His exact source will probably never be known for the simple reason that he probably didn't have one...
He then goes on to discuss magical rings and items that confer invisibility, before noting that the specific combination - rings that confer invisibility - is quite rare (also observing that the Ring of the Nibelungs does not confer invisibility, thereby supporting Tolkien's own comment given above).
His conclusion is worth excerpting:
...the one likeliest to have influenced Tolkien in the Hobbit is Owein's ring in 'The Lady of the Fountain' ... it seems very likely, however, that both Plato's account and perhaps Fénelon's contributed something to the One Ring as Tolkien developed it in the Lord of the Rings - never forgetting, however, that the primary influence on Frodo's ring is in fact the Hobbit itself: here, as so often, Tolkien is his own main source. Doubtless other rings of invisibility exist which have eluded my researches, but no ring exactly like Bilbo's has surfaced and it seems likely that this is because it was Tolkien's own invention...
The obvious conclusion Rateliff is making here is that one shouldn't assume that everything has an external inspiration; there are some original works.
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