Truefastness: Castor and Polydeuces (Κάστωρ καὶ Πολυδεύκης)

All Hail!

χαίρετε, Τυνδαρίδαι!

"Castor et Pollux"

These be the Great Twin Brethren

To whom the Dorians pray.
Back comes the chief in triumph,
Who, in the hour of fight,
Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren
In harness on his right.
Safe comes the ship to haven,
Through billows and through gales,
If once the Great Twin Brethren
Sit shining on the sails.

- Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

The "Great Twin Brethren" to whom the Dorians (here that is the Spartans) pray, are the well-known "Heavenly Twins" Castor and Pollux or Castor and Polydeuces (Κάστωρ καὶ Πολυδεύκης), otherwise known as the Dioscuri (Διόσκουροι). Though the Romans also sometimes called them both the "Castores". The earliest marking of Castor and his brother in Latin is to be found in a votive inscription at Lavinium: "Castorei Podlouqueique \ qurois". From which we can see that they were borrowed, one way or another, from the Greek colonies in the south of Italy.

Among the Hellenes, Castor and Polydeuces are forever to be linked to Sparta. Pindar in his Tenth Nemean Ode calls them (line 52):

εὐρυχόρου ταμίαι Σπάρτας

"overseers (ταμίαι) of broad dancing-places of Sparta"

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata has the lines:

Τυνδαρίδας τ᾿ ἀγασώς, 1300
τοὶ δὴ πὰρ Εὐρώταν ψιάδδοντι.

and Tyndareos’ fine sons,
who gallop beside the Eurotas.

[Aristophanes. Birds. Lysistrata. Women at the Thesmophoria. Edited and translated by Jeffrey Henderson. Loeb Classical Library 179. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. lvs.438 to 439 ]

To swear “by the two gods”, meaning Castor and Polyduces, was something that most Greeks once thought was a typically Spartan thing to do. In Xenophon’s Anabasis book 6, chap.6, §34, Cleander the Spartan swears ναὶ τὼ σιώ,“by the two gods”. In Aristophanes’ play Peace “ναὶ τὼ σιὼ” “by the two gods” is taken to be a typical Spartan oath matching an Attic “νὴ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν, νὴ Δί” “By Athena, by Zeus”. In his Lysistrata the Spartan woman Lampito swears four times “ναὶ τὼ σιὼ” “by the two gods” (lines 84, 86, 90, 140) and once ναὶ τὸν Κάστορα “by Castor” (line 206), whilst the Spartan men swear six times “by the two gods” (lines 983, 1095, 1105, 1171, 1174, 1180) and by Castor once (line 988).

This swearing by the twins is rooted in an old Indo-European tradition, for we will find them, under the name of Nāsatyā, among the divine witnesses to the oath sworn by the Mitanni when they fastened the frith with the Hittites circa 1400 B.C.E. And although it has died out in everyday speech, we will find old literary references to the use of "By Jiminy", that is "By Gemini (Gemini = twins)", as a mild oath. Tennyson in his play 'The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian' (1892) Act 2, scene 1 has Robin say:

Nay, by Saint Gemini, I ha' two; ...

Laughton Osborn (1809-1878) The Double Deceit (1867) Act II, sc.2:

"St.Geminy! Take Heed!"

Henry Fielding The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) Book VI - Chapter VI :

"O Gemini, my dear lady, what is the matter?"

Thomas D'Urfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote as it is acted at the Queens Theatre in Dorset-Garden (1694)

Ah Gimminy , I could eat the Letter up methinks :

The idylliums of Theocritus with Rapin's discourse of pastorals / done into English (1684):

O Jemminy, dear Gorgo, here's a throng,
I wonder how we two shall get along:

This is from the fifteenth idyll and awends the Greek spoken by one Praxinoa:

ὦ θεοί, ὅσσος ὄχλος. πῶς καὶ πόκα τοῦτο περᾶσαι
χρὴ τὸ κακόν;

ὦ θεοί meaning literally " O Gods".

Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) [here] where "The citie of Norwich speaketh to the quéenes mai[e]stie".:

In admiration of thy grace, good queene thart welcome hither:
More welcome than Terpsicore was to the towne of Troie.
Sea-faring men by Gemini conceiue not halfe my ioie.
Strong Hercules to Theseus was neuer such delight,
Nor Nisus to Eurialus as I haue in this sight.

Castor and Polydeuces are not the only "Heavenly Twins" to be found in Olden Greece, but the other twins are much harder to spot by an unskilled eye (see [here]). For as we have marked many times before, ideas about the first of mankind and of the first finders of this or that, have become mixed up with all, as well as a lot of physical speculation as to the first principles of things. It is important to understand here at the outset however, that Castor and Polydeuces, as the erstwhile sons of Tyndareus (Τυνδάρεος) a mythic king of Laconia (Λακωνία) or Lacedaemonia (Λακεδαίμονα) - though most English-speakers will know it as Sparta (Σπάρτα) from its headborough - are truly aṃśa-avatārau "partial incarnations" (oftened shortened to avatārau "avatars") of the wholly divine Heavenly Twins or Aśvinau, not unlike Sahadeva and Nakula who we may find in the Mahābhārata. The Greeks however, it is fair to say, have badly muddled up the aṃśa-avatārau with their wholly divine archetypes, as if they were all the same thing. But they are not alone in this, and we find the self same thing has happened to the aṃśa-avatārau that underlie the names of Hengest and Horsa in our own tradition (see [here]). And that this is something with deeper roots than may at first be thought, as can be seen when we look eastward to the Aśvinau. For whilst the Aśvinau are thought of wholly as gods in the Ṛgvedaḥ, as divo napātā (10.61.4) "(grand)sons of heaven", and twins mithunā (10.17.2), yet we will still find in 1.181.4 the whisper of two fathers:

jiṣṇurvāmanyaḥ sumakhasya sūrirdivo anyaḥ subhaghaḥ putra ūhe
One of you Prince of Sacrifice, the Victor, the other counts as Heaven's auspicious offspring. (awend. R.T.H. Griffith)

Whence the "nānā jātāv" "born separately" of 5.73.4.

Among the Greeks, the names of Castor and Polydeuces came to have the edge over all the other names for the overmany aṃśa-avatārau, in so much as they had something the others didn't. For Castor and Polydeuces were the brothers of Helen of Troy, and Helen of Troy was a household name amongst all the Greeks thanks to the outstandingness of Homer's works. Without Homer things might have been otherwise.

Sextus Empiricus Against the Physicists I, 37:

“καὶ τοὺς Τυνδαρίδας δέ φασι τὴν τῶν Διοσκούρων δόξαν ὑπελθεῖν πάλιν νομιζομένων εἶναι θεῶν·”

Which A. B. Cook awends in his Zeus (1925) volume II, part 1, chap. 2, iv, β lf.433:

“Moreover, they say that the Tyndaridai usurped the reputation [δόξαν ὑπελθεῖν] of the Dioskouroi, who were thought to be gods.”

From which we can see that the Dioscuri and the Tyndaridai, Castor and Polydeuces, were not the same to begin with, but became increasingly confused with eachother in time. Amphion and Zethus who built the walls of Thebes are an earlier descent of themselves, thus the name of Dioscuri (Διόσκουροι) was particular shared by Castor and Polyuduces with Amphion and Zethus, as Hesychius tells us.

<Διόσκουροι>· οἱ Ἑλένης ἀδελφοί. - Ζῆθος καὶ Ἀμφίων, Λευκόπωλοι καλούμενοι (Eur. Phoen. 606 Antiop. p. XVIII C 55 N.) - καὶ ἀστέρες, οἱ τοῖς ναυτιλλομένοις φαινόμενοι. καὶ σημεῖον ἐν θυτικῇ

Dioscuri: the brothers of Helen. [also] Zethus and Amphion. They are called "White horses" and the "Stars" that show themselves to seafarers, and signs in an offering.

And both were called "white horses" thus Pindar has λευκοπώλων Τυνδαριδᾶν, "to the sons of Tyndareus of the white horses" in his first Pythian Ode, line 66,in Euripides’ more or less lost play Antiope, he calls Amphion and Zethus the "λεύκω δὲ πώλω τὼ Διὸς " "white steeds of Zeus" (see also his Phœnissæ line 609). And Hesychius, as we marked above, also calls them Λευκόπωλοι.

But these are only the descents (aṃśa-avatārau). As wholly divine beings the Greeks knew the Heavenly Twins under the names of Curetes, Corybantes or "Anactores"/"Anactes" awent as "Kings". Thus in the Orphic hymn to the Curetes (38) we find the lines:

    " Κουρῆτες Κορύβαντες, ἀνάκτορες εὐδύνατοί τε
    ἐν Σαμοθράικηι ἄνακτες, ὁμοῦ <δὲ> Διόσκοροι αὐτοί, ..."

    "Curetes, Corybantes, kings and good-mighty ones
    on Samothrace the Anaktes (kings), one and the same as the Dioscuri themselves, ...".

"on Samothrace the Anaktes" is another way of saying the Cabiri, which is yet another byname for them at times as we have marked in earlier posts, And in the same hymn we find"Heavenly Twins" as another line calls them:

     "... οὐράνιοι δίδυμοι κλήιζεσθ' ἐν Ὀλύμπωι"

     "... heavenly twins well-known in Olympus".

Moreover, from an inwrit found at Pergamon (CIG 3538), these same Cabiri, called here interestingly the "sons of Heaven (Ouranos)", are said to have witnessed the birth of Zeus on the heights of Pergamon:

οἷσι πάρ’ Οὐρανοῦ υἷες ἐθηήσαντος Κάβειροι
πρῶτοι Περγαμίης ὑπὲρ ἄκριος ἀστεροπη<τ>ὴν
τικτόμενον Δία, μητρώιην ὅτε γ<α>στ[έρα] λῦσεν·

Among whom Ouranos’ sons, the Kabeiroi, first
kept watch on the heights of Pergamon over the new-born
Zeus the lightener, when he opened the maternal womb;

[awending T. L. Robinson from his Theological oracles and the sanctuaries of Claros and Didyma, (1981) Diss. Harvard.]

That is the rôle otherwise bestowed upon the Curetes in Greek myth.

What Strabo writes of all these Cabiri/Corybantes/Curetes in his Geography is maybe worth bearing in mind here, thus book 19 chapitle 21:

“ μάλιστα μὲν οὖν ἐν Ἴμβρῳ καὶ Αήμνῳ τοὺς Καβείρους τιμᾶσθαι συμβέβηκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν Τροίᾳ κατὰ πόλεις· τὰ δ᾿ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν ἐστὶ μυστικά.”

“Now it has so happened that the Cabeiri are most honoured in Imbros and Lemnos, but they are also honoured in separate cities of the Troad; their names, however, are kept secret. ”

book 10, chapitle 19:

“ἔτι δὲ Κρόνου τινὲς τοὺς Κορύβαντας, ἄλλοι δὲ Διὸς καὶ Καλλιόπης φασὶ τοὺς Κορύβαντας, τοὺς αὐτοὺς τοῖς Καβείροις ὄντας· ἀπελθεῖν δὲ τούτους εἰς Σαμοθρᾴκην, καλουμένην πρότερον Μελίτην, τὰς δὲ πράξεις αὐτῶν μυστικὰς εἶναι.”

“Further, some call the Corybantes sons of Cronus, but others say that the Corybantes were sons of Zeus and Calliopê and were identical with the Cabeiri, and that these went off to Samothrace, which in earlier times was called Melitê, and that their rites were mystical.”

And 20:

“20. Ταῦτα δ᾿ οὐκ ἀποδεξάμενος ὁ Σκήψιος ὁ τοὺς μύθους συναγαγὼν τούτους, ὡς μηδενὸς ἐν Σαμοθρᾴκῃ μυστικοῦ λόγου περὶ Καβείρων λεγομένου, παρατίθησιν ὅμως καὶ Στησιμβρότου τοῦ Θασίου δόξαν, ὡς τὰ ἐν Σαμοθρᾴκῃ ἱερὰ τοῖς Καβείροις ἐπιτελοῖτο· καλεῖσθαι δέ φησιν αὐτοὺς ἐκεῖνος ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους τοῦ ἐν τῇ Βερεκυντίᾳ Καβείρου.”

“20. But though the Scepsian, who compiled these myths, does not accept the last statement, on the ground that no mystic story of the Cabeiri is told in Samothrace, still he cites also the opinion of Stesimbrotus the Thasian that the sacred rites in Samothrace were performed in honour of the Cabeiri: and the Scepsian says that they were called Cabeiri after the mountain Cabeirus in Berecyntia. ”

And 50:

“50.(51). Ὅτι τοὺς ἐν τῇ Σαμοθρᾴκῃ τιμωμένους θεοὺς εἰρήκασι πολλοὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς τοῖς Καβείροις, οὐδ᾿ αὐτοὺς ἔχοντες λέγειν τοὺς Καβείρους, οἵ τινές εἰσι, καθάπερ τοὺς Κύρβαντας καὶ Κορύβαντας, ὡς δ᾿ αὕτως Κουρῆτας καὶ Ἰδαίους Δακτύλους. (Epit. Vat.)”

“50 (51) Many writers have identified the gods that are worshipped in Samothrace with the Cabeiri, though they cannot say who the Cabeiri themselves are, just as the Cyrbantes and Corybantes, and likewise the Curetes and the Idaean Dactyli, are identified with them.”

[Strabo. Geography, Volume III: Books 6-7. Awent by Horace Leonard Jones. Loeb Classical Library 182. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924. lvs. 370 to 371]

book 10, chapitle 21:

“πιθανὸν δέ φησιν ὁ Σκήψιος, Κουρῆτας μὲν καὶ Κορύβαντας εἶναι τοὺς αὐτούς, οἳ περὶ τὰς τῆς μητρὸς τῶν θεῶν ἁγιστείας πρὸς ἐνόπλιον ὄρχησιν ἠίθεοι καὶ κόροι τυγχάνουσι παρειλήμμενοι, καὶ κορύβαντες δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ κορύπτοντας βαίνειν ὀρχηστικῶς, ...”

“The Scepsian says that it is probable that the Curetes and the Corybantes were the same, being those who had been accepted as young men, or “youths,” for the war-dance in connection with the holy rites of the Mother of the gods, and also as “corybantes” from the fact that they “walked with a butting of their heads” in a dancing way.”

But back to the "descent" under enquiry.

After the House of their Fathers

In the Iliad book 3 line 244 we are told that Castor and Polydeuces lie:

ἐν Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ.

there in Lacedaemon, in their dear native land.

But what Murray has awent as "dear native land" is more literally in the Greek "dear land of their fathers". Thus Theocritus calls them (22.5):

Λακεδαιμονίους δύ᾽ ἀδελφούς,
"the two Lacedaemonian brethren"

That Castor and Polydeuces are called at one time the sons of Tyndareus (οἱ Τυνδαρίδαι), and at another the sons of Zeus, shows us that who did what, and to whom, was something that could be endlessly argued.

As many writers have marked, the name of Διόσκουροι is oftened likened the "divo napātā" "(grand)sons of heaven" found in the Ṛgvedaḥ six times as a title of the Aśvinau , thus 10. 61.4 “divo napātāśvinā” “the Sons of Dyaus, the Aśvins”. And these in their own way match the names of the Heavenly Twins that we find in Latvia of Dieva dēli, and in Lithuania of Dievo sūneliai. In 1.182.2 the Aśvinau are called "maruttamā" most Marut-like, and the Maruts are araught as maryāḥ, a word a lot like the old Greek κοῦροι (Διόσκουροι > Διόσ + κοῦροι). And whilst the Maruts are known as rudrasya maryāḥ (1.64.2; 7.56.1) – "the sons of Rudra", they are once also called divo maryāḥ (5.59.6) – "the sons of heaven" which matches Διόσκουροι better than "divo napātā". At 10.143. 3, the Aśvinau are divo narā "heroes of the sky" (Griffith) or "men of heaven" (Jamison & Brereton). It should be well marked here that the Maruts and the Aśvinau are close to eachother in many ways. Often the Aśvinau are called Rudrā "Rudras" (as 1.158.1; 2.41.7; 5.73.8; 5.75.3; 8.26.5; 10.93.7), whilst the Maruts are (5.57.4) said to be yamā iva “like twins”. Whilst the goddess Rodasi whom the Maruts share (RV 1.166.4) is said to be "like Suryā" (1.166.5) the daughter of the Sun whom we will see is the wife of the Aśvinau.

Although Castor and Polydeuces are mostly shown as we would ideally think them to be:

So like they were, no mortal
Might one from other know:

Pausanias in his Guide to Greece (Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις) 5. 19.2 says of a likeness of Castor and Polydeuces on an old chest at Olympia that "ὁ ἕτερος οὐκ ἔχων πωγένεια" "one of them had no beard". Which, needless to say, means one of them did at one time. The Aśvinau are likewise at one time yuvānā (7.67.10 & 7.69.8 ) "youths" and at another time pratnā (6.62.5) "old ones" - for what is forever outside of time can play with our time-bound perceptions of it at will.

The name Castor is meant to be from ἐκέκαστο epic pluperfect from καίνυμαι “to surpass, excel”. It was a common name, and in the Odyssey 14.204 Odysseus calls himself Castor son of Hylacus from Crete! But it is also worth marking that κάστωρ was the Greek word for a beaver, whence we have "Castor oil". On the many leechcrafts wrought with "Castor oil" see Pliny's Natural History book 32, chapitle 13. Vergil even marks it in the first book of his Georgics:

virosaque Pontus 58
castorea,

castor rank
From Pontus,....

The scholia on Nicander's Alexipharmaca line 328 and Theriaca line 625, and on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica 1.1037 will have Polydeuces name from Ancient Greek δεῦκος (deûkos) - akin to the Latin dulcis - and an Aetolian variation of γλεῦκος (gleûkos, “sweet new wine” ), as if the whole name meant "much new sweet wine", or "the very sweet one". Theocritus plays with this in his twenty-twoth idyll, line 34:

Κάστωρ δ᾽ αἰολόπωλος ὅ τ᾽ οἰνωπὸς Πολυδεύκης
Castor of the nimble coursers and Polydeuces ruddy as the wine

οἰνωπὸς meaning literally "wine-face" is brooked elsewhere of Dionysus, as in Euripides' play the Bacchae line 438.

The Ṛgvedaḥ (as at 4.43.4; 7.76.7 & 7.71.2) knows the Aśvinā as mādhvī "the honey-bearing ones" and madhūyuvā (5.73.8) "lovers of sweetness" (literally "lovers of honey") but the "honey" referred to withal is the drink of the gods, soma, whose earthly approximation was sweetened with honey.

Ṛgvedaḥ has bynames of the Aśvinā beginning puru- which matches the Greek poly- in Polydeuces: purupriyā purumandrā (8.5.4 ) "dear to many, making many glad,"; puruścandrā nāsatyā (8.5.32 ) "Nāsatyas, shining brilliantly." "you much-gleaming Nāsatyas"; purumandrā purūvasū (8.8.12) "Cheerers of many, rich in goods"; purubhujā (8.10.6) "Lords of great riches"; purubhūtamā devā (8.22.3) "Two Omnipresent Deities" "two gods who most often appear in many places"; purudaṃsasā (8.87.6) "famed for great deeds" "possessed of many wonders".

Tyndareus himself was said to be the son of Oebalus (Οἴβαλος), Oebalus son of Cynortas (Κυνόρτας), Cynortas son of Amyclas (Ἀμύκλας), Amyclas son of Lacedæmon (Λακεδαίμων) (see Paus. 3.1.1-3) and Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas who was a son of Lelex, a son of the soil, by a Naiad nymph Cleocharia. Lacedæmon is said to be the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Taygete (Ταϋγέτη) for whom Mount Taygetus is named. Tyndareus' mother was Gorgophone (Γοργοφόνη) a daughter of Perseus (Paus. 3.1.3). So, a thorough-going noble Greek "Achaean" pedigree is given to him with an inherited claim to the kingship of Laconia or Lacedæmonia, a kingdom through which the river Eurotas ran and whose headborough was Sparta. And all under Mount Taygetus, where the sun was long worshipped with offerings of horses, and where the Pleiad Taygete herself might well stand for the old sun-goddess (see [here] and [here]).

Above: The Peak of Mount Taygetus seen from Vassiliki Forest. By Athens2004 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9994090. The κορυφῇ or pyramid-like peak of the tallest mountain in the Peloponnese (it reaches 7,887 ft.) is now named for the Prophet Elijah "Profitis Ilias" (there is a ruined chapel, see [here]). This is Pausanias' "ἄκρα δὲ τοῦ Ταϋγέτου Ταλετὸν" "peak of Taygetos Taléton" (3.20.4) where horses were offered to the sun.

In Pindar's First Isthmian Ode speaks of Castor as

Τυνδαρίδας δ᾽ ἐν Ἀχαιοῖς ... οἰκέων :

the son of Tyndareus, dwelling among the Achaeans

Castor and Polydeuces belong to a world where Ἀχαιοί "Achaeans" (that the true Λακεδαιμόνιοι/Λάκωνες are "Achaeans"- see Paus. 3.2.6; 3.12.9) are ruling over Λέλεγες "Leleges" (see Paus. 3.1.2). The historic Δωριεῖς "Dorians" whom many will straightaway link to the Dioscuri, did not live in Laconia when Castor and Polydeuces lived there. When we first meet these "Dorians" in the Peleponnesus they are the foes of the "Achaeans" , and incomers from Doris in the North who would at length drive the "Achaeans" into the region called Aegialea, and later called Achaea from them, or make Περίοικοι or helots out of them. They had come south for that they had made an alliance with Heracles of old in return for his help against the Dryopes in Doris, and later took in his exiled offspring as their kings (Strabo Geog. 9.4.10). And it would seem Heracles chose to "die" among them, as his balefire on Mount Oeta was on the meares of Doris. As Heracles was of the kingly stock of the Δαναοί "Danaans" who had ruled at Argos of yore, his ervewards had a claim to the kingship of the whole Peloponnesus, if not over all the Greeks. A claim the Heracleid-led "Dorians" were rather keen to press. When they came south the "Dorians" shared out Argos, Messenia and Laconia by lot (Paus. 3.1.5-7; Pindar Fifth Pythian lines 69 - 72 ). Laconia fell to Aristodemus' twin sons Procles and Eurysthenes who also wed the twin daughters of Thersander: Lathria and Anaxandra (3.16.6). Although Castor and Polydeuces were doubtlessly behind all this, it is well to think here that for the "Dorians" as a whole there was no ancestral worship of Castor and Polydeuces. They were not therefore in any way "Dorian" gods . Rather, Castor and Polydeuces were the specific gods of the land of Laconia. Or as Pindar put it:

εὐρυχόρου ταμίαι Σπάρτας

"overseers (ταμίαι) of broad dancing-places of Sparta"

That the Heralcleid kings of Laconia nevertheless, took the Dioscuri as their patron gods can be seen from what Herodotus says in his Histories book 5 of the fightlock at Eleusis:

75. [1] μελλόντων δὲ συνάψειν τὰ στρατόπεδα ἐς μάχην, Κορίνθιοι μὲν πρῶτοι σφίσι αὐτοῖσι δόντες λόγον ὡς οὐ ποιέοιεν δίκαια μετεβάλλοντό τε καὶ ἀπαλλάσσοντο, μετὰ δὲ Δημάρητος ὁ Ἀρίστωνος, ἐὼν καὶ οὗτος βασιλεὺς Σπαρτιητέων καὶ συνεξαγαγών τε τὴν στρατιὴν ἐκ Λακεδαίμονος καὶ οὐκ ἐὼν διάφορος ἐν τῷ πρόσθε χρόνῳ Κλεομένεϊ. [2] ἀπὸ δὲ ταύτης τῆς διχοστασίης ἐτέθη νόμος ἐν Σπάρτῃ μὴ ἐξεῖναι ἕπεσθαι ἀμφοτέρους τοὺς βασιλέας ἐξιούσης στρατιῆς· τέως γὰρ ἀμφότεροι εἵποντο· παραλυομένου δὲ τούτων τοῦ ἑτέρου καταλείπεσθαι καὶ τῶν Τυνδαριδέων τὸν ἕτερον· πρὸ τοῦ γὰρ δὴ καὶ οὗτοι ἀμφότεροι ἐπίκλητοί σφι ἐόντες εἵποντο. [3] τότε δὴ ἐν τῇ Ἐλευσῖνι ὁρῶντες οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν συμμάχων τούς τε βασιλέας τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων οὐκ ὁμολογέοντας καὶ Κορινθίους ἐκλιπόντας τὴν τάξιν, οἴχοντο καὶ αὐτοὶ ἀπαλλασσόμενοι,

75. Then as the armies were just about the join battle, the Corinthians first, considering with themselves that they were not acting rightly, changed their minds and departed; and after that Demaratos the son of Ariston did the same, who was king of the Spartans as well as Cleomenes, though he had joined with him in leading the army out from Lacedemon and had not been before this at variance with Cleomenes. In consequence of this dissension a law was laid down at Sparta that it should not be permitted, when an army went out, that both the kings should go with it, for up to this time both used to go with it, and that as one of the kings was set free from service, so one of the sons of Tyndareus also should be left behind; for before this time both of these two were called upon by them for help and went with the armies.

But even so, the Spartan kings were the hereditary priests of Zeus, not the Dioscuri, and it was Heracles who was their ancestral god.

Birth in Exile

Tyndareus was one of three brothers, the other two being Icarius and Hippocoön (Ἱπποκόων). But Hippocoön drove out Tyndareus and Icarius into exile. Spartan sources, illogically and to no small harm to the tale's integrity, will only have Tyndareus and Icarius going as far north as Pellana (Paus. 3.1.4), so as to still be in Spartan lands. But the more sensible path to take here is to think that Tyndareus and Icarius went to king Thestius (Θέστιος) in Ætolia (Αἰτωλία) where, for helping him against his foes (the Curetes of Curetis or Acarnania?), Tyndareus won the hand of Thestius's daughter Leda. Thestius the son of Agenor the son of Pleuron the son of Aetolus (Αἰτωλός) eponym of the "Aetolians" ( οἱ Αἰτωλοί). This also outfolds why Polydeuces has a name in the Ætolian dialect.

We have already dealt with the "egg-birth" myth and its meaning in the last post (see [here]). I don't think it rightly belongs to the myth of Castor and Polydeuces or of the Heavenly Twins to begin with. But the Heavenly Twins were long likened to birds, thus the aśvinā are birds Ṛgvedaḥ 4.43.4:

diva ājātā divyā suparṇā kayā śacīnām bhavathaḥ śaciṣṭhā
You two, born from heaven as fine-feathered heavenly birds—by which
one of your abilities do you become the most able?

5.78. 1 to 3 is a simple invocation to come to soma “haṃsāv iva” “like swans” /"like geese".

8.35.8 haṃsāv iva patatho "Ye fly like swans (haṃsāv), " "Like geese you fly".

2.39.3 "cakravākeva" like a pair of Cakravāka or “brahminy ducks”

That Hyginus Fabulæ 77 will have the conception (and birth?) of Castor and Polydeuces and their sisters, Helen and Clytaemnestra, "ad flumen Eurotam" "by the water of the Eurotas" in Laconia. But this is wholly against the chronology of their own myth! As also Pindar's belief that they were born at Sparta. For Tyndareus was still a bachelor when he was driven out of Laconia by his younger brother Hippocoon and his sons. And it was whilst he was in exile at the court of Thestius at Calydon (Καλυδών) in Aetolia (see Apollodor. Lib. 3.10.4-5)that he wed Thestius' daughter Leda (Λήδα). Tyndareus having won her hand in wedlock after helping Thestius against the neighbouring Curetes of Pleuron (Πλευρών) to the west. Hyginus' Eurotas should therefore be read as the Evenus.

Evinos River, Greece - View from the Bania bridge.jpg

The waters of the Evenus in Aetolia by Χρήστος Μακροζαχόπουλος, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2792918

But it seems that the newly wed couple left Aetolia soon after their wedding for Thalamæ (Θαλάμαι or Θαλάμη) in Messenia (Μεσσηνία) so that Castor and Polyduces and their sisters could be born on the nearby eyot (νησίς) of Pephnus (Πέφνος). Pausanias 3.26.2-3 says:

"[2] Θαλαμῶν δὲ ἀπέχει σταδίους εἴκοσιν ὀνομαζομένη Πέφνος ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ. πρόκειται δὲ νησὶς πέτρας τῶν μεγάλων οὐ μείζων, Πέφνος καὶ ταύτῃ τὸ ὄνομα: τεχθῆναι δὲ ἐνταῦθα τοὺς Διοσκούρους φασὶν οἱ Θαλαμᾶται. τοῦτο μὲν δὴ καὶ Ἀλκμᾶνα ἐν ᾁσματι οἶδα εἰπόντα: τραφῆναι δὲ οὐκέτι ἐν τῇ Πέφνῳ φασὶν αὐτούς, ἀλλὰ Ἑρμῆν τὸν ἐς Πελλάναν κομίσαντα εἶναι.
[3] ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ νησῖδι ἀγάλματα Διοσκούρων χαλκᾶ μέγεθος ποδιαῖα ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ τῆς νησῖδός ἐστιν: ταῦτα ἡ θάλασσα ἀποκινεῖν οὐκ ἐθέλει κατακλύζουσα ὥρᾳ χειμῶνος τὴν πέτραν. τοῦτό τε δὴ θαῦμά ἐστι καὶ οἱ μύρμηκες αὐτόθι λευκότερον ἢ ὡς μυρμήκων τὸ χρῶμα φαίνουσι. τὴν δὲ χώραν οἱ Μεσσήνιοι ταύτην αὑτῶν φασιν εἶναι τὸ ἀρχαῖον, ὥστε καὶ τοὺς Διοσκούρους μᾶλλόν τι αὑτοῖς καὶ οὐ Λακεδαιμονίοις προσήκειν νομίζουσιν."

"[2] Twenty stades from Thalamæ is a place called Pephnus on the coast. In front of it lies a small island no larger than a big rock, also called Pephnus. The people of Thalamae say that the Dioscuri were born here. I know that Alcman too says this in a song: but they do not say that they remained to be brought up in Pephnus, but that it was Hermes who took them to Pellana. [3] In this little island there are bronze statues of the Dioscuri, a foot high, in the open air. The sea will not move them, though in winter-time it washes over the rock, which is wonderful. Also the ants here have a whiter colour than is usual. The Messenians say that this district was originally theirs, and so they think that the Dioscuri belong to them rather than to the Lacedaemonians."(Awending Jones).

That Alcman himself acknowledged it as the birthstow of Castor and Polydeuces speaks much on its behalf. Lycophron references it in his riddling poem Alexandra, calling Paris the "Πεφναίας κυνός" "hound of Pephnus" line 87, and implying thereby that Helen at least was born there.

Pausanias has Aphareus of Messenia agree to shelter Tyndareus because he was “the brother of Tyndareus on his mother’s side” (3.1.4). That is, Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus was the mother of both Aphareus and Tyndareus having wed twice, first to Perieres the father of Aphareus, second to Œbalus (2.21.7). From this we can then see how Apollodorus and others make the mistake (Ap. 3.10.3) of making Aphareus a full brother of Tyndareus. But the bonds of kinship were even greater as Aphareus had wed Œbalus’ daughter Arene (Paus. 4.2.4). We can also see likewise how some take Tyndareus to be sprung from Æolus, which is in fact Aphareus’ forefather (see Paus. 4.2.1 + 4.2.4).

Thalamæ is significant as it is a colony of folk from Boeotia who settled there when Niobe the sister of Pelops wed Amphion (Strabo Geog. 8.4.4) the brother of Zethus. Amphion and Zethus being the older Dioscuri who built the walls of seven gated Thebes in Boeotia!

οἰκίσαι δὲ λέγεται Πέλοψ τό τε Λεῦκτρον καὶ Χαράδραν καὶ Θαλάμας, τοὺς νῦν Βοιωτοὺς καλουμένους, τὴν ἀδελφὴν Νιόβην ἐκδοὺς Ἀμφίονι καὶ ἐκ τῆς Βοιωτίας ἀγαγόμενός τινας.

It is said that Pelops, after he had given his sister Niobê in marriage to Amphion, founded Leuctrum, Charadra, and Thalami (now called Bœoti), bringing with him certain colonists from Bœotia .

All this is to show that there was an ancient cult of the Heavenly Twins at Thalamæ and at Pephnus introduced by folk from Boeotia. Beside the eyot of Pephnus is the port of Saint Demetrius (Άγιος Δημήτριος ), earlier Platsa (on the west side of the Mani peninsula, some four miles south of Lefktro (the old Leuktra), and marked on tourist maps as "Το νησί που γεννήθηκε η ωραία Ελένη" "The island where the fair Helen was born"!). It is an ancient crossing place for those sailing over the Gulf of Messenia (Μεσσηνιακός Κόλπος) to the old port of Corone. And it may be worthwhile to mark that the tower of the later castle built there was long brooked as a light-house, maybe with an ancient precedent. Pausanias tells us (4.34.5) that Corone on the western side of the gulf is named after Coroneia in Bœotia by exiles from Messenia coming home after the overthrow of the Spartans!

Above: Pephnus - an eyot or islet next to Agios Dimitrios village by Kavouras55.

As Pephnus is indeed "under the peak of Taygetos" (no. 17: ὑπὸ Τηϋγέτου κορυφῇς (line 3). No. 33: ὑπὸ Ταϋγέτου κορυφῇ (line 4)) we can see that their birth in that place does no harm to where the "Homeric hymns" says they are born.

It is worth marking here also that the folk of the Mani peninsula as a whole have a reputation for sea-faring, albeit more as pirates than anything else, and they claim to be the only true Spartans and true Greeks - the Mani peininsula being something of a natural refugium. The "old belief" is also said to have lasted longest there than anywhere else on the Greek mainland for the same reason. In the gathering together of other folk's Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey and Other Countries of the East (1818) outset by Robert Walpole we find that that one "Mr. Morritt" was in a party that came to the spot 14th to 16th April 1795:

"... the little creek of Platsa, shut in by the rock of Pephnos, near which was a tower, the residence of the Capitano Christeia, ... .... at a small distance from the port, ... ".

The tower, which is still there (see [here]), was where Morritt was a guest and splendidly entertained by the aforesaid "Capitano" who had "recently captured at sea a small French merchant ship ... set the crew on shore, and brought his prize to Platsa,..."!

Herakles.

Χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον κατῆλθέ τε ὑπὸ Ἡρακλέους Τυνδάρεως, καὶ ἀνενεώσατο τὴν ἀρχὴν·
Subsequently Tyndareus was brought back by Heracles and recovered his throne.

- Pausanias, Description of Greece 3. 1. 5.

Near the temple of Zeus Scotitas there was an "ἄγαλμά ... Ἡρακλέους καὶ τρόπαιον" "a likenes of Hercales and a post marking his victory" over Hippocoön and his sons (Paus. 3.10.6). Now Tyndareus would never have come out of exile to be king of Sparta were it not for him meeting Herakles in exile and becoming his friend. I guess that Tyndareus meets Herakles when the latter makes his inroad into Messenia that left only Nestor alive to become king at Pylus. Herakles then agrees to help Tyndareus and an army is raised. Pausanias has Herakles kill Hippocoon and his sons because they wouldn’t purify him of the death of Iphitus (3.15.3). The same is told of the sons of Neleus in Messenia where it maybe belongs. Heracles doesn't need any other pretext to kill Hippocoön other than that he is restoring Tyndareus to his rightful throne, but there is a tradition that Heracles was also getting his own back for the murder of a kinsman and a failed earlier attempt at awreaking him, thus Pausanias 3.15. 4 to 5:

[4]Οἰωνὸς ἡλικίαν μὲν μειράκιον, ἀνεψιὸς δὲ Ἡρακλεῖ—Λικυμνίου γὰρ παῖς ἦν τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ τοῦ Ἀλκμήνης —ἀφίκετο ἐς Σπάρτην ἅμα Ἡρακλεῖ· περιιόντι δὲ καὶ θεωμένῳ τὴν πόλιν, ὡς ἐγίνετο κατὰ τοῦ Ἱπποκόωντος τὴν οἰκίαν, ἐνταῦθά οἱ κύων ἐπεφέρετο οἰκουρός. ὁ δὲ τυγχάνει τε ἀφείς λίθον ὁ Οἰωνὸς καὶ καταβάλλει τὴν κύνα. ἐπεκθέουσιν οὖν τοῦ Ἱπποκόωντος οἱ παῖδες καὶ ῥοπάλοις τύπτοντες κατεργάζονται τὸν Οἰωνόν.[5] τοῦτο Ἡρακλέα μάλιστα ἐξηγρίωσεν ἐς Ἱπποκόωντα καὶ τοὺς παῖδας· αὐτίκα δὲ ὡς ὀργῆς εἶχε χωρεῖ σφισιν ἐς μάχην. τότε μὲν δὴ τιτρώσκεται καὶ λαθὼν ἀπεχώρησεν· ὕστερον δὲ ἐξεγένετό οἱ στρατεύσαντι ἐς Σπάρτην τιμωρήσασθαι μὲν Ἱπποκόωντα, τιμωρήσασθαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς παῖδας τοῦ Οἰωνοῦ φόνου. τὸ δὲ μνῆμα τῷ Οἰωνῷ πεποίηται παρὰ τὸ Ἡρακλεῖον.

Oeonus, a stripling cousin of Heracles—he was the son of Licymnius the brother of Alcmene—came to Sparta along with Heracles, and went round to view the city. When he came to the house of Hippocoön, a house-dog attacked him. Oeonus happened to throw a stone which knocked over the dog. So the sons of Hippocoön ran out, and dispatched Oeonus with their clubs. This made Heracles most bitterly wroth with Hippocoön and his sons, and straightway, angry as he was, he set out to give them battle. On this occasion he was wounded, and made good his retreat by stealth; but afterwards he made an expedition against Sparta and succeeded in avenging himself on Hippocoön, and also on the sons of Hippocoön for their murder of Oeonus. The tomb of Oeonus is built by the side of the sanctuary of Heracles.

[lvs. 89 to 92]

Hippocoön is thereby killed and Tyndareus is then made king, but with the odd promise it seems that Tyndareus and his offspring were now only caretaker kings for Herakles and his sons. Should Herakles and his offspring ever want it, Tyndareus and his offspring would have to hand it over. Herakles is here for his father the thunder-god, and needfully the Heavenly Twins are servants to the greater godhead. Castor and Polydeuces ,will never be kings. For although Pausanias marks that Castor and Polydeuces became kings (3.1.5) this is not borne out by the details we meet otherwhere. For Tyndareus outlives them and the kingdom passes through his daughter Helen to Menelaus. Clytemnestra his other daughter had wed Agamemnon. Menelaus's other children will be passed over and the kingdom will go to Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son Orestes who wed Hermione the daughter of Menelaus and Helen! Their son Tisamenus will become ruler after him but will himself be killed by the incoming Dorians under their Heracleidæ kings.

Pindar, in his third Olympian Ode sings of a similar relationship to Heracles that Castor and Polydeuces have when it comes to the Olympic Games :

.... καί νυν ἐς ταύταν ἑορτὰν ἵλαος ἀντιθέοισιν νίσσεται
35σὺν βαθυζώνου διδύμοις παισὶ Λήδας.
τοῖς γὰρ ἐπέτραπεν Οὐλυμπόνδ᾽ ἰὼν θαητὸν ἀγῶνα νέμειν
ἀνδρῶν τ᾽ ἀρετᾶς πέρι καὶ ῥιμφαρμάτου
διφρηλασίας.

"And now in his kindness he comes regularly to this festival of ours, together with the godlike [35] twin sons of deep-waisted Leda. For Heracles, when he ascended to Olympus, assigned to them the ordering of the marvellous contest of men, the contest in excellence and in the driving of swift chariots.."

[Odes. Pindar. Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. ]

And in the tenth Nemean Ode something similar must lie behind Pindar's words there:

Κάστορος δ᾽ ἐλθόντος ἐπὶ ξενίαν πὰρ Παμφάη
50καὶ κασιγνήτου Πολυδεύκεος, οὐ θαῦμα σφίσιν
ἐγγενὲς ἔμμεν ἀεθληταῖς ἀγαθοῖσιν: ἐπεὶ
εὐρυχόρου ταμίαι Σπάρτας ἀγώνων
μοῖραν Ἑρμᾷ καὶ σὺν Ἡρακλεῖ διέποντι θάλειαν,
[100] μάλα μὲν ἀνδρῶν δικαίων περικαδόμενοι. καὶ μὰν θεῶν πιστὸν γένος.

"But since Castor [50] and his brother Polydeuces came to Pamphaës to receive a hospitable welcome, it is no wonder that it is innate in their race to be good athletes; since the Dioscuri, guardians of spacious Sparta, along with Hermes and Heracles, administer the flourishing institution of the games, and they care very much for just men. Indeed, the race of the gods is trustworthy."

[Odes. Pindar. Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. ]

Pindar's First Isthmian Ode speaks of Castor and Iolaus taking part in the games:

ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ Ἡροδότῳ τεύχων τὸ μὲν ἅρματι τεθρίππῳ γέρας,
15 [20] ἁνία τ᾽ ἀλλοτρίαις οὐ χερσὶ νωμάσαντ᾽ ἐθέλω
ἢ Καστορείῳ ἢ Ἰολάου ἐναρμόξαι νιν ὕμνῳ.
κεῖνοι γὰρ ἡρώων διφρηλάται Λακεδαίμονι καὶ Θήβαις ἐτέκνωθεν κράτιστοι:
ἔν τ᾽ ἀέθλοισι θίγον πλείστων ἀγώνων,
καὶ τριπόδεσσιν ἐκόσμησαν δόμον
20καὶ λεβήτεσσιν φιάλαισί τε χρυσοῦ,
γευόμενοι στεφάνων
[30] νικαφόρων: λάμπει δὲ σαφὴς ἀρετὰ
ἔν τε γυμνοῖσι σταδίοις σφίσιν ἔν τ᾽ ἀσπιδοδούποισιν ὁπλίταις δρόμοις,
οἷά τε χερσὶν ἀκοντίζοντες αἰχμαῖς,
25καὶ λιθίνοις ὁπότ᾽ ἐν δίσκοις ἵεν.
οὐ γὰρ ἦν πεντάθλιον, ἀλλ᾽ ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστῳ
ἔργματι κεῖτο τέλος.
τῶν ἀθρόοις ἀνδησάμενοι θαμάκις
ἔρνεσιν χαίτας ῥεέθροισί τε Δίρκας ἔφανεν καὶ παρ᾽ Εὐρώτᾳ πέλας,
30 [40] Ἰφικλέος μὲν παῖς ὁμόδαμος ἐὼν Σπαρτῶν γένει,
Τυνδαρίδας δ᾽ ἐν Ἀχαιοῖς ὑψίπεδον Θεράπνας οἰκέων ἕδος.
χαίρετ᾽.

But I, while I frame for Herodotus a prize of honor for his four-horse chariot, [15] and for managing the reins with his own hands and not another's, want to join him to the song of Castor or of Iolaus, for of all heroes they were the strongest charioteers, the one born in Sparta and the other in Thebes. And in the games they attempted the greatest number of contests, and adorned their homes with tripods [20] and caldrons and goblets of gold, tasting victorious garlands. Their excellence shines clearly, in the naked footraces and in the shield-clashing hoplite races, and in all the deeds of their hands, in flinging the spear [25] and whenever they hurled the stone discus. For there was no pentathlon, but for each feat a separate prize was set up. Often crowning their hair with wreaths from these contests they appeared beside the streams of Dirce or near the Eurotas, [30] the son of Iphicles, who was of the same city as the race of the Sown Men, and the son of Tyndareus, dwelling among the Achaeans in his highland home of Therapne. Farewell.

[Odes. Pindar. Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. ]

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 15. 5 :

[5] ἰόντι δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν ἵππων ἔστι βωμός, ἐπίγραμμα δὲ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ Μοιραγέτα: δῆλα οὖν ἐστιν ἐπίκλησιν εἶναι Διὸς ὃς τὰ ἀνθρώπων οἶδεν, ὅσα διδόασιν αἱ Μοῖραι καὶ ὅσα μὴ πέπρωταί σφισι. πλησίον δὲ καὶ Μοιρῶν βωμός ἐστιν ἐπιμήκης, μετὰ δὲ αὐτὸν Ἑρμοῦ καὶ δύο ἐφεξῆς Διὸς Ὑψίστου: ἐν δὲ τῶν ἵππων τῇ ἀφέσει ἐν μὲν τῷ ὑπαίθρῳ, τῆς ἀφέσεως κατὰ μέσον που μάλιστα, Ποσειδῶνος Ἱππίου καὶ Ἥρας εἰσὶν Ἱππίας βωμοί, πρὸς δὲ τῷ κίονι Διοσκούρων.

"[5] As you go to the starting-point for the chariot-race there is an altar with an inscription “to the Bringer of Fate.” This is plainly a surname of Zeus, who knows the affairs of men, all that the Fates give them, and all that is not destined for them. Near there is also an oblong altar of Fates, after it one of Hermes, and the next two are of Zeus Most High. At the starting-point for the chariot-race, just about opposite the middle of it, there are in the open altars of Poseidon Horse-god and Hera Horse-goddess, and near the pillar an altar of the Dioscuri."

the Dioscuri... along with Hermes and Heracles, administer the flourishing institution of the games....

Near the "Course" (δρόμος) where the young men ran in Sparta was a shrine of the Dioscuri (3.14.6). And (3.14.7) “πρὸς δὲ τοῦ Δρόμου τῇ ἀρχῇ Διόσκουροί τέ εἰσιν Ἀφετήριοι ” “At the beginning of the Course are the Dioscuri Starters, ”. Nearby:

τοῦ Ἀσκληπιοῦ δὲ οὐ πόρρω τρόπαιον ἕστηκε, Πολυδεύκην δὲ ἀναστῆσαί φασιν ἐπὶ Λυγκεῖ·
Not far from Asclepius stands a trophy, raised, they say, by Polydeuces to celebrate his victory over Lynceus.

And this is again not far from an old likeness of Heracles and the tomb on one of Hippocoön's sons.

At the Plane-trees (Πλατανιστᾶς) there was a moated eyot (3.14.8) where the Spartan youths in two teams had to fight a wild wrestling/boxing match. We might have hoped to find some trace of the Dioscuri here, but on the two bridges that led to the eyot had likenesses of Heracles on one and the law-giver Lycurgus on the other (3.14.8). That Lycurgus was one eyed (3.18.2) and worshipped as a god (3.16.6), makes this pair seem a lot like our northern Óðin and Þór. There are hero shrines near the Plane-trees of Heracles, Helen and three of Hippocoön's sons (3.15.1-3)! The night-time offering of a puppy to Enyalius at the so-called Phoebaeum (Φοιβαῖόν) near Therapne where there is a temple to the Dioscuri seems to belong to Ares (Paus. 3.14.9-10; 3.20.2; 3.15.7). The same youths also have to make offering to Achilles in his shrine (3.20.8) on the way to Arcadia from Sparta near the shrine of Athena Pareia.

Tamers of Horses?

In Book three of the Iliad, when Helen looks out at the Greeks from the walls of Troy, she hopes to see her brothers but cannot see them:

δοιὼ δ᾽ οὐ δύναμαι ἰδέειν κοσμήτορε λαῶν
Κάστορά θ᾽ ἱππόδαμον καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεα
αὐτοκασιγνήτω, τώ μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ.

but two marshallers of the host can I not see, 236
Castor, tamer of horses, and the goodly boxer [lit. "with the good fist"], Polydeuces,
even mine own brethren, whom the same mother bare.

And the idea that the Dioscuri are ἱππόδαμοι "tamers of horses" and have πὺξ ἁγαθοί "good fists" or "good hands" are old ideas. The same epithets are edledged in the Odyssey 11.300. And the thirty-third Homeric hymn to the Dioscuri minns Castor as a ἱππόδαμος:

Κάστορά θ᾽ ἱππόδαμον

Callimachus, Lyric Poems Pannychis Frag 227 (awend. C. A. Trypanis) :
ὦ Κάστορ [ἵππων δμήτορες] καὶ σὺ Πωλύδ[ευκες
καὶ τῶν ἀ[οίκων ῥύτορες] καὶ ξένω[ν ὁδηγοί

"O Castor, and you, Polydeuces, (tamers of horses), (protectors of the homeless) and (guides) of the guests . . .".

[Callimachus, Musaeus. Aetia, Iambi, Hecale and Other Fragments. Hero and Leander. Edited and translated by C. A. Trypanis, T. Gelzer, Cedric H. Whitman. Loeb Classical Library 421. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973 lvs. 162 to 163]

The thirty-third Homeric hymn calls Polydeuces ἀμώμητος "blameless/unblemished" rather than having a "good fist", and in both Homeric hymns to them both are now:

"ταχέων ἐπιβήτορες ἵππων"
"riders on swift horses".

Castor and Polydeuces were often shown as riders on horses. But this is more true to say of them as gods, after their return to heaven so to speak. Hyginus Astronomica 2.22 says Neptunus, that is Poseidon, gave them horses to ride so that they could help the shipwrecked, but also as a meed for their brotherly love ("Neptunum autem pari consilio munerasse; nam equos quibus utuntur donavit et dedit potestatem naufragis saluti esse.")

A verse of Alcæus about them runs:

οἲ κὰτ εὔρηαν χθόνα καὶ θάλασσαν
παῖσαν ἔρχεσθ’ ὠκυπόδων ἐπ’ ἴππων,
ῤῆα δ’ ἀνθρώποις θανάτω ῤύεσθε
ζακρυόεντος,

Ye fare over the broad earth

And the whole sea on swift-footed horses

And men from numbing death ye easily free

Which horses, from Pindar's first Pythian Ode, line 66, were often understood to be white:-

λευκοπώλων Τυνδαριδᾶν,
"to the sons of Tyndareus of the white horses".

These horses are truly the star-like "St.-Elmo's fires" and so on which were their primary manifestations of old, and which we will come back to in a while. Thus Servius in his commentary on the first book of Vergil's Georgics

Tuque o, cui prima frementem 12
fudit equum magno tellus percussa tridenti,
Neptune; ...

And about this horse Servius has this to say:

equum autem a Neptuno progenitum alii Scythium, alii Scyronem, alii Arionem dicunt fuisse nominatum. et ideo dicitur equum invenisse, quia velox est eius numen et mobile, sicut mare: unde etiam Castor et Pollux, quia eorum velocissimae stellae sunt, equos in tutela habere dicuntur

[Also the horse begotten by Neptune was said to be named by some Scythius, by others Scyron, or Arion. And it is said he found the idea of a horse, for that his power is swift and mobile, as the sea: whence also Castor and Polydeuces, for that their stars are overly-swift, are said to have horses in keeping.].

But be this as it may be, we still find in Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 8 a wholly earthly foreshadowing of this when he areaches the twins taking part in the hunt for the boar of Calydon :

At gemini, nondum cælestia sidera, fratres,
ambo conspicui, nive candidioribus ambo
vectabantur equis, ambo vibrata per auras
hastarum tremulo quatiebant spicula motu. 375

And the twin brothers, not yet heavenly stars,
both were to be seen from afar, both were riding snow white horses
and both stirred the air, shaking the heads of their spears with a quivering motion.

The name of the Eastern Heavenly Twins of the Aśvinau, means the "horsemen", and they are intrinsically linked to horses ("yātam aśvinā svaśvā" "come Aśvinau with good horses" RV 7.68.1 "aśvināv āśuheṣasā" "the Aśvinau having quick horses" RV 8.10.2) but the horses pulling a chariot are almost always to be understood in the Ṛgvedaḥ where horse riding was regarded as an inferior activity unworthy of the gods. It is worth marking here that Asko Parpola in his The Roots of Hinduism (2015) sees the Aśvinau as arising from a divine charioteer and chariot-fighter pair, who share the same chariot as twins are said to do a womb (see Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, 5, 3, 1, 8). It is an interesting idea, but I think that the name of the Aśvinau itself points to horse riders as being the older idea, and we find that later Hindu tradition links them more specifically to the horses themselves. Thus Yāska in his Nirukta 12.10 (awend. Lakshman Sarup) :

“tvāstrī.saranyūr.vivasvata.ādityād.yamau.mithunau.janayām.cakāra/
sā.savarṇām.anyām.pratinidhāya.āśvam.rūpam.kṛtvā.pradudrāva/
sa.vivasvān.āditya.āśvam.eva.rūpam.kṛtvā.tām.anusṛtya.sambabhūva/
tatas.aśvinau.jajñāte/
savarṇāyām.manuh/”

“Saraṇyū daughter of Tvaṣṭṛ bore twins, Yama and Yamī, to Vivasvat the sun. She having substituted another lady of similar appearance, and having assumed the shape of a mare, ran away. He, Vivasvat, the sun, having also assumed the shape of a horse, pursued her, and joined her. Thence the Aśvins were born. Manu was born from the lady of similar appearance.”

Above: "Birth of the Celestial Twins, Folio from a Harivamsha (Lineage of Vishnu) LACMA M.83.1.7".

See also Ṛgvedaḥ 10.17.1 to 2.

Indra and Agni are in one place, 1. 109, 4, also called aśvinā, " horsemen."

And among the Greeks there are some "Heavenly Twins" where one of the twain is a horse as we have marked in an earlier post,(see [here]) thus we have Areion and the Mistress in Arcadia and Pegasus and Chrysaor. It is also worth marking here that the brothers Centaurus (κένταυρος) and Lapithes (Λαπίθης), the forefathers of the Centaurs and Lapiths, are "Heasvenly Twins" (see Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 4.69.1). The half horse, half man, that we think of when we hear the word centaur is the offspring of the human Centaurs and their horses. The original human Centaurs were a stock of horse-riding cow-herders ("cowboys") from Thessaly, who it seems also had a reputation for magic, thus we find Cheiron among them. And seen in this light it is is not wrong to say that Castor and Polydeuces "are almost centaurs" (Adrian Bailey). It is worth marking here that the plain of the Eurotas is one of the few places fit for horses in the Peleponnesus; and that it was not lacking in horses even in Menelaus's time so that Homer could have him offering horses to Telemachus as a gift in his Odyssey. And outside of Laconia I would guess it is Thessaly and Boeotia that are the best horse grazing lands in Greece, thus these were well known of old for their cavalry. Furthermore, it is arguable that the whole horse riding, bride-lifting and cow-herding/stealing lifestyle of the Centaurs of Thessaly and, as we shall see, of Castor and Polydeuces further south, is maybe more in keeping with the life of the Celto-Scyths on the Steppes than it is with the Greeks among their craggy islands and mountains..

Pindar in his third Olympian Ode speaks of

"εὐίππων ... Τυνδαριδᾶν"
"from the sons of Tyndareus with good horses".

And in the Ṛgvedaḥ 7.69.3 & 7.68.1 the Aśvinau are called:

svaśvā “with good horses”.

Above: Marija Gimbutas' Ancient Symbolism in Lithuanian Folk Art (1958) lf.70.

Charioteers

In the First Isthmian Ode, as we have marked already, Pindar speaks of Castor and Iolaus as the ἡρώων διφρηλάται ... κράτιστοι "the strongest charioteers of the heroes". And in his Fifth Pythian :

ὦ θεόμορ᾽ Ἀρκεσίλα, 5
σύ τοί νιν κλυτᾶς
αἰῶνος ἀκρᾶν βαθμίδων ἄπο
[10] σὺν εὐδοξίᾳ μετανίσεαι
ἕκατι χρυσαρμάτου Κάστορος:
εὐδίαν ὃς μετὰ χειμέριον ὄμβρον τεὰν 10
καταιθύσσει μάκαιραν ἑστίαν.

[5] Arcesilas, favored by the gods, from the first steps of your famous life you seek for it with glory, by the grace of Castor with his golden chariot, [10] who, after the wintry storm, sheds calm on your blessed hearth.

[Odes. Pindar. Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. ]

χρυσάρματος - with a car of gold matches what is said of chariot of the Aśvinā in the Ṛgvedaḥ. 8.5.28-29:

rathaṃ hiraṇyavandhuraṃ hiraṇyābhīśum aśvinā |
ā hi sthātho divispṛśam ||
hiraṇyayī vāṃ rabhir īṣā akṣo hiraṇyayaḥ |
ubhā cakrā hiraṇyayā ||

28 Ascend your car with golden seat, O Aśvins, and with reins of gold,
That reaches even to the sky.
29 Golden is its supporting shaft, the axle also is of gold,
And both the wheels are made of gold. [awending Griffith]

28. O Aśvins, the chariot with golden chariot-box and golden reins
that touches heaven—since you will mount it—
29. Golden your chariot-shaft, golden your chariot-pole and your axle;
golden both your wheels— [awending Jamison & Brereton]

And 1.47.9 and.8.8.2 rathena sūryatvacā "your car decked with a sun-bright canopy" (Griffith) or "your sun-skinned chariot" (Jamison & Brereton). In 1.77.3 their vchariot is “hiraṇyatvaṅ madhuvarṇo ghṛtasnuḥ” “Covered with gold, meath-tinted, dropping fatness, ”(Griffith) “Golden-skinned, honey-colored, ghee-backed,” (Jamison & Brereton).

Needless to say maybe, but the chariot of the Heavenly Twins flies through the air, thus Ṛgvedaḥ 8.10.6:

yad antarikṣe patathaḥ purubhujā yad veme rodasī anu |
yad vā svadhābhir adhitiṣṭhatho ratham ata ā yātam aśvinā ||

6 Lords of great riches (purubhujā), whether through the firmament ye fly or speed through heaven and earth,
Or with your Godlike natures stand upon your cars, come thence, O Aśvins, hitherward.

They are always the best charioteers 1.182.2:

indratamā hi dhiṣṇyā maruttamā dasrā daṃsiṣṭhā rathyā rathītamā |

Longed for, most Indra-like, mighty, most Marut-like, most wonderful in deed, car-borne, best charioteers,[awending Griffith]

“Because you holy ones are the first of Indras and the first [awending Jamison & Brereton] of Maruts, the most wondrous wondrous ones and the best chariot-driving chariot drivers,”,

With Good Hands

As we have already marked, that the Dioscuri have πὺξ ἁγαθοί "good fists" or "good hands" is an old idea. Ṛgvedaḥ calls the Aśvinā - dravatpāṇī “quick-handed” (1.1.1) bhadrahastā supāṇī “auspicious hands” “good hands” (1.109.4) and "vīḷupāṇī" "hard-handed" (7.73.4).

That καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεα was understoood more narrowly as meaning that he was a good boxer we can see from Theocritus in his twenty-twoth idyll, line 132:

ὦ πύκτη Πολύδευκες:
"O good boxer Polyduces".

And lines 2 and 3:

... καὶ φοβερὸν Πολυδεύκεα πὺξ ἐρεθίζειν
χεῖρας ἐπιζεύξαντα μέσας βοέοισιν ἱμᾶσιν.

and with him Polydeuces, that dire wielder of the fist
and of the wrist-harness of the leathern thong.

I would guess it was Polydeuces' boxing match with Amycus king of the Bebryces, undertaken whilst he was sailing on the Argo, that was meant to show how he won this title.

Chiron

Xenophon’s work On Hunting (Κυνηγετικός) tells us that Castor and Polydeuces were taught by Chiron. And he says:

Κάστωρ δὲ καὶ Πολυδεύκης ὅσα ἐπεδείξαντο ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι τῶν παρὰ Χείρωνος διὰ τὸ ἀξίωμα τὸ ἐκ τούτων ἀθάνατοί εἰσι.

Castor and Polydeuces, through the renown that they won by displaying in Greece the arts they learned of Cheiron, are immortal.

Now this is more than a name-drop. For the Aśvinā were once said to have been taught by the rishi called Dadhyaṅ(ṅ) or Dadhyac (dadhīco, dadhīce), otherwise known as "Dadhichi" [see [here]]. He is marked in the Ṛgvedaḥ at 1.80.16; 1.84.13; 1.116.12; 1.117.22; 1.119.9; 1.139.9; 6.16.14; 9.108.4; 10.48.2, And in 1.84.14, 1.116.12, 1.117.22, 1.119.9 Dadhyaṅ is linked to the head of a horse (śiraḥ ... aśvyaṃ/'śvyaṃ śiraḥ/aśvasya śīrṣṇā/aśvasya ... chiraḥ). Furthermore, it is linked, with the Aśvinā knowing the secret of immortality.

In hymns to the aśvinā by Kakṣīvant Dairghatamasa we may read -

tad vāṃ narā sanaye daṃsa ugram āviṣ kṛṇomi tanyatur na vṛṣṭim |
dadhyaṅ ha yan madhv ātharvaṇo vām aśvasya śīrṣṇā pra yad īm uvāca ||

1.116.12 That mighty deed of yours, for gain, O Heroes, as thunder heraldeth the rain, I publish,
When, by the horse's head, Atharvan's offspring Dadhyac made known to you the Soma's sweetness.

ātharvaṇāyāśvinā dadhīce 'śvyaṃ śiraḥ praty airayatam |
sa vām madhu pra vocad ṛtāyan tvāṣṭraṃ yad dasrāv apikakṣyaṃ vām ||

1.117.22 Ye brought the horse's head, Aśvins, and gave it unto Dadhyac the offspring of Atharvan.
True, he revealed to you, O Wonder-Workers, sweet Soma, Tvaṣṭar's secret, as your girdle.

uta syā vām madhuman makṣikārapan made somasyauśijo huvanyati |
yuvaṃ dadhīco mana ā vivāsatho 'thā śiraḥ prati vām aśvyaṃ vadat ||

1.119.9 To you in praise of sweetness sang the honey-bee: Auśija calleth you in Soma's rapturous joy.
Ye drew unto yourselves the spirit of Dadhyac, and then the horse's head uttered his words to you.

All of which oddly echoes Xenophon's words about Castor and Polydeuces and Chiron. Might we not then see in the rishi Dadhyaṅ the original form of Chiron? And Castor and Polydeuces would then be Chiron's original students?

Hunting the Boar of Calydon

I take it that the hunt for the boar of Calydon was the first great deed undertaken by the Dioscuri.

Castor and Polydeuces are drawn into the hunt for the boar of Calydon from their mother, Leda, being the sister to Althaea (Ἀλθαία) the wife of Oeneus (Οἰνεύς) who it seems was ruling in Calydon after the death of Thestius. It was Oeneus' mistake not to mark Artemis at a thanksgiving offering which made her send a wild boar to ravage his land.

That Castor and his brother should take part in the hunt for the boar of Calydon becomes more readily understood when we know that Castor "tamer of horses" was at one time also a well-known hunter. Thus "Καστορίδες" is the name of a breed of hunting dog (see Xenophon on Hunting 3.1 "αἱ ... καστόριαι") that Castor is meant to have reared, thus in Julius Pollux's Onomasticon we read:

"αἱ δὲ Καστορίδες Κάστορος θρέμματα, Ἀπόλλωνος τὸ δῶρον·"
"the Castorides: the fosterlings of Castor, the gift of Apollo".

In sharing in the hunt of the boar of Calydon they may well have been cursed by Artemis to an untimely death.

Ovid has the fullest telling of this mythic hunt in book 8 of his Metamorphoses lines 267 to 546 (see [here]).

Argonauts

In the list of Argonauts (Ἀργοναῦται) in Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica we read:

Καὶ μὴν Αἰτωλὶς κρατερὸν Πολυδεύκεα Λήδη
Κάστορά τ' ὠκυπόδων ὦρσεν δεδαημένον ἵππων
Σπάρτηθεν: τοὺς δ' ἥγε δόμοις ἔνι Τυνδαρέοιο
τηλυγέτους ὠδῖνι μιῇ τέκεν: οὐδ' ἀπίθησεν
νισσομένοις: Ζηνὸς γὰρ ἐπάξια μήδετο λέκτρων. 150

(1.146-150) Moreover Aetolian Leda sent from Sparta strong Polydeuces and Castor, skilled to guide swift-footed steeds; these her dearly-loved sons she bare at one birth in the house of Tyndareus; nor did she forbid their departure; for she had thoughts worthy of the bride of Zeus.

It was on this voyage that the Dioscuri were shown to be aṃśa-avatārau of the heavenly Twins worshipped on Samothrace, thus Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 43. 1 (awend. Oldfather) :

“[43] Ἐπιγενομένου δὲ μεγάλου χειμῶνος, καὶ τῶν ἀριστέων ἀπογινωσκόντων τὴν σωτηρίαν, φασὶν Ὀρφέα, τῆς τελετῆς μόνον τῶν συμπλεόντων μετεσχηκότα, ποιήσασθαι τοῖς Σαμόθρᾳξι τὰς ὑπὲρ τῆς σωτηρίας εὐχάς. Εὐθὺς δὲ τοῦ πνεύματος ἐνδόντος, καὶ δυοῖν ἀστέρων ἐπὶ τὰς τῶν Διοσκόρων κεφαλὰς ἐπιπεσόντων, ἅπαντας μὲν ἐκπλαγῆναι τὸ παράδοξον, ὑπολαβεῖν δὲ θεῶν προνοίᾳ τῶν κινδύνων ἑαυτοὺς ἀπηλλάχθαι. Διὸ καὶ τοῖς ἐπιγινομένοις παραδοσίμου γεγενημένης τῆς περιπετείας, ἀεὶ τοὺς χειμαζομένους τῶν πλεόντων εὐχὰς μὲν τίθεσθαι τοῖς Σαμόθρᾳξι, τὰς δὲ τῶν ἀστέρων παρουσίας ἀναπέμπειν εἰς τὴν τῶν Διοσκόρων ἐπιφάνειαν.

"There came on a great storm and the chieftains had given up hope of being saved, when Orpheus, they say, who was the only one on ship-board who had ever been initiated in the Mysteries of the deities of Samothrace, offered to these deities prayers for their salvation. And immediately the wind died down and two stars fell over the heads of the Dioscuri, and the whole company was amazed at the marvel which had taken place and concluded that they had been rescued from their perils by an act of providence of the gods. For this reason, the story of this reversal of fortune for the Argonauts has been handed down to succeeding generations, and sailors when caught in storms always direct their prayers to the deities of Samothrace and attribute the appearance of the two stars to the epiphany of the Dioscuri."

As we have already marked (see [here]) there are some who thought the Argo was truly the first ship ever built, and the sailing of the Argonauts would be the first seafaring. This fits in with the old traditions of the Cabeiroi of Samothrace. And as the works of Sanchuniathon /Philo of Biblus quoted in Euseb. Prep. bk. 1 ch. 10§14:

“ ἐκάλεσανἐκ δὲ Συδὺκ Διόσκουροι ἢ Κάβειροι ἢ Κορύβαντες ἢ Σαμοθρᾷκες. οὗτοι φησί πρῶτοι πλοῖον εὗρον. ἐκ τούτων γεγόνασιν ἕτεροι, οἳ καὶ βοτάνας εὗρον καὶ τὴν τῶν δακετῶν ἴασιν καὶ ἐπῳδάς.”

“'From Suduc came the Dioscuri, or Cabeiri, or Corybantes, or Samothraces: these, he says, first invented a ship. From them have sprung others, who discovered herbs, and the healing of venomous bites, and charms. …”

These Argonauts moreover are thought to have come home to Greece, not by going up the Danube and down the Rhone as Apollonis of Rhodes has it, but by going up the Don (Tanaïs) then through the Baltic, North Sea, English Channel and the Atlantic ocean before coming back into the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar! Which Diodorus believes outfolds why there was such a strong belief of the "Heavenly Twins" all along these far off shores, thus 4.56. 4:

" Ἀποδείξεις δὲ τούτων φέρουσι, δεικνύντες τοὺς παρὰ τὸν ὠκεανὸν κατοικοῦντας Κελτοὺς σεβομένους μάλιστα τῶν θεῶν τοὺς Διοσκόρους· παραδόσιμον γὰρ αὐτοὺς ἔχειν ἐκ παλαιῶν χρόνων τὴν τούτων τῶν θεῶν παρουσίαν ἐκ τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ γεγενημένην. Εἶναι δὲ καὶ τὴν παρὰ τὸν ὠκεανὸν χώραν οὐκ ὀλίγας ἔχουσαν προσηγορίας ἀπό τε τῶν Ἀργοναυτῶν καὶ τῶν Διοσκόρων. Παραπλησίως δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐντὸς Γαδείρων ἤπειρον ἔχειν ἐμφανῆ σημεῖα τῆς τούτων ἀνακομιδῆς."

" And the writers even offer proofs of these things, pointing out that the Celts who dwell along the ocean venerate the Dioscuri above any of the gods, since they have a tradition handed down from ancient times that these gods appeared among them coming from the ocean. Moreover, the country which skirts the ocean bears, they say, not a few names which are derived from the Argonauts and the Dioscuri."

As we have already marked, the horses they ride and were given to them by Poseidon (see Hyginus Astronomica 2.22 "Neptunum autem pari consilio munerasse; nam equos quibus utuntur donavit et dedit potestatem naufragis saluti esse.") are truly to be understood as what are called "Saint Elmo's Fires" but of old were called by the names of Castor and Polydeukes themselves (see Pliny Nat. Hist. 2.37) and which were taken as a foretokening of the end of a storm at sea. Alcaeus, Fr. 34 Lobel-Page (= Furley and Bremer, Greek Hymns 4.3):

δεῦτέ μοι νᾶσον Πέλοπος λίποντες
παῖδες ἴφθιμοι Δίος ἠδὲ Λήδας,
εὐνόωι θύμωι προφάνητε, Κάστορ
     καὶ Πολύδευκες,

οἲ κὰτ εὔρηαν χθόνα καὶ θάλασσαν
παῖσαν ἔρχεσθ’ ὠκυπόδων ἐπ’ ἴππων,
ῤήα δ’ ἀνθρώποις θανάτω ῤύεσθε
     ζακρυόεντος,

εὐσ̣δύγων θρώισκοντες ἐπ’ ἄκρα νάων
πήλοθεν λάμπροι πρότον’ ὀντρ̣έχοντες,
ἀργαλέαι δ’ ἐν νύκτι φάος φέροντες
     νᾶϊ μελαίναι·

Leave Pelops’ island and come hither for me,
You mighty sons of Zeus and Leda,
And appear with benevolent spirit, Castor
And Polydeuces,

You who travel over the broad earth
And all the sea on swift-footed horses
And easily rescue men from
Ice-cold death-

Leaping from afar onto the tops of
Well-benched ships, shining as you run up
The forestays, bringing light in the troubled night
To a black ship.

Ṛgvedaḥ 1.117.14-15 is interesting reading here:

yuvaṃ tughrāya pūrvyebhirevaiḥ punarmanyāvabhavataṃ yuvānā |
yuvaṃ bhujyumarṇaso niḥ samudrād vibhirūhathurṛjrebhiraśvaiḥ ||
ajohavīdaśvinā taughryo vāṃ proḷhaḥ samudramavyathirjaghanvān |
niṣ ṭamūhathuḥ suyujā rathena manojavasā vṛṣaṇāsvasti ||

Ye, ever-youthful Ones, again remembered Tugra, according to your ancient manner:
With horses brown of hue that flew with swift wings ye brought back Bhujyu from the sea of billows.

The son of Tugra had invoked you, Aśvins; borne on he went uninjured through the ocean.
Ye with your chariot swift as thought, well-harnessed, carried him off, O Mighty Ones, to safety.

The saving Bhujyu, son of Tugra, from drowning at sea is also marked at 1.112.6 &20; 1.116.3; 1.118.6; 6.62.6; 7.68.7; 7.69.7; 10.39.4; 10.40.7; 10.65.12; 10.143.5. Horses "that flew with swift wings" could be winged-horses or even birds. And that these lights might be thought of at times as birds seems to me not only to be the older belief, but also the more obvious one. Pliny Natural History book 2 ch.37 "de stellis quae Castore vocantur" "of the stars which they call for Castor" :

" et antemnis navigantium aliisque navium partibus ceu vocali quodam sono insistunt, ut volucres sedem ex sede mutantes, ..."

"They also settle on the yard-arms and other parts of ships while sailing, producing a kind of vocal sound, like that of birds flitting about."

The Ṛgvedaḥ knows the knows the Aśvinā (as at 8.26.12) as dhiṣṇyā, and among the many possible meanings is "fires" or "stars".

Stephen Batman in his The golden booke of the leaden goddes, wherein is described the vayne imaginations of heathen Pagans and counterfaict Christians: wyth a description of their several Tables, what ech of their pictures signified (London: 1577) hath this to say of "CASTOR & POLLVX":

"THese were figured like two Lampes, or Cresset lightes, one on the Toppe of a Maste, the other on the Stemme or foreshippe.

Signification.

BY the light first appearing in ye Stemme or forship & ascending vpwarde, the Maryners hope of good lucke, for wynde and weather fayre to ensue: But if ether lights beginne at the Topmaste, Bowespryte, or Foreship, and descend down ward into the Sea, it is a token of vehement tempest to folow.

Castor is supposed to be that light which ascendeth & burneth cleare & bright. Pollux that which descendeth, and is more dymme, & styncking, lyke Sulphur. ...".

Above: I take this shows the following from Antonio Pigafetta’s Account of Magellan’s Voyage- "Making for the south-east we found four islands, named Ciboco, Birabam Batolac, Sarangani, and Candigar. Saturday, the 26th of October, about nightfall, whilst coasting the island of Birabam Batolac, we met with a very great storm, before which we lowered all our sails, and betook ourselves to prayer. Then our three saints appeared upon the masts and dispersed the darkness. St. Elmo stood for more than two hours at the mainmast head like a flame. St. Nicholas at the head of the foremast, and St. Clara on the mizenmast. In gratitude for their assistance we promised a share to each of the saints, and we gave to each an offering." Or a bit later : "In this place we endured a great storm, and thought we should have been lost, but the three holy bodies, that is to say, St. Anselmo, St. Nicolas, and Sta. Clara, appeared to us, and immediately the storm ceased." (full text [here])

Latvian Dieva dēli "sons (dēli) of God (Dievs)" who are widely understood as being, at heart at least, the same as the Greeks' Castor and Polydeukes are linked to the same phenomena:

Div svecītes jūrā dega Sudrabiņa lukturos;
Tās dedzina
Dieva dēli, Zvejnieciņus gaidīdami.

Two candles burn at sea
In silver lanterns;
They're lit by the sons of Dievs,
Awaiting fishermen.

In England it seems these lights also came to be linked to Saint Nicholas matching what Antonio Pigafetta writes of him in his Account of Magellan’s Voyage and which outfolds why he has so many churches hallowed to him. We can see the saint in the following painting of Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370 – 1427) doing what Castor and his brother did long before him. The name Nicholas however, it should here be marked is Greek, Νικόλαος which is often said to be made up from νίκη (níkē, “victory”) + λαός (laós, “people”), but λαός can also have the meaning in Greek of "an army" which would go better with the first half. So it is as if it means "victory of an army". And who is it who bestows victory on armies?

These odd "fires" or "lights" were also thought of as "stars" thus Plutarch, Life of Lysander 12. 1 :

“ἦσαν δέ τινες οἱ τοὺς Διοσκούρους ἐπὶ τῆς Λυσάνδρου νεὼς ἑκατέρωθεν, ὅτε τοῦ λιμένος ἐξέπλει πρῶτον ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους, ἄστρα τοῖς οἴαξιν ἐπιλάμψαι λέγοντες. ”

"There were some who declared that the Dioskouroi appeared as twin stars on either side of Lysander's ship just as he was sailing out of the harbour against the enemy, and shone out over the rudder-sweeps."

[Plutarch's Lives. with an English awending by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1916. 4. ]

Whence two stars become their abiding tokens. Cicero De Divinatione Bk.1 75:

"Eademque tempestate multis signis Lacedaemoniis Leuctricae pugnae calamitas denuntiabatur. Namque et in Lysandri, qui Lacedaemoniorum clarissumus fuerat, statua, quae Delphis stabat, in capite corona subito exstitit ex asperis herbis et agrestibus, stellaeque aureae quae Delphis erant a Lacedaemoniis positae post navalem illam victoriam Lysandri qua Athenienses conciderunt, qua in pugna quia Castor et Pollux cum Lacedaemoniorum classe visi esse dicebantur, - eorum insignia deorum, stellae aureae, quas dixi, Delphis positae, paulo ante Leuctricam pugnam deciderunt neque repertae sunt."

"The Spartans received many warnings given at that time of their impending defeat at Leuctra. For example, a crown of wild, prickly herbs suddenly appeared on the head of the statue erected at Delphi in honour of Lysander, the most eminent of the Spartans. Furthermore, the Spartans had set up some golden stars in the temple of Castor and Pollux at Delphi to commemorate the glorious victory of Lysander over the Athenians, because, it was said, those gods were seen accompanying the Spartan fleet in that battle. Now, just before the battle of Leuctra these divine symbols — that is, the golden stars at Delphi, already referred to — fell down and were never seen again."

[Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, vol. XX, 1923; Latin texts with facing English awendings by W[illiam] A[rmistead] Falconer.]

Jérôme de Bara in his Le blason des armoires (1579) gives witty armes to the old heroes of Greek myth and amongst them we find those bestowed upon Castor and Pollux thus:

Everything that helps seafarers steer at sea is of the Heavenly Twins.

In Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica 2 we hear of Lycus raising a temple to the heavenly Twins which was meant to be a sea-mark (awend. R.C. Seaton):

“νόσφι δὲ Τυνδαρίδαις Ἀχερουσίδος ὑψόθεν ἄκρης
εἵσομαι ἱερὸν αἰπύ: τὸ μὲν μάλα τηλόθι πάντες
ναυτίλοι ἂμ πέλαγος θηεύμενοι ἱλάξονται:
καί κέ σφιν μετέπειτα πρὸ ἄστεος, οἷα θεοῖσιν,
πίονας εὐα:ρότοιο γύας πεδίοιο ταμοίμην." 810”

“And besides that, to the sons of Tyndareus will I raise a lofty temple on the Acherusian height, which all sailors shall mark far across the sea and shall reverence; and hereafter for them will I set apart outside the city, as for gods, some fertile fields of the well-tilled plain.”

Lighthouses to help ships steer at sea and save lives seemingly arose from their cult. Thus Rendel Harris Boanerges cambridge 1913, ch. xix, lvs. 200 to 204, and by way of summing up I give what he writeth on lvs. 200 to 201:

“From these observations we conclude generally that, since the Twins preside over navigation, on shore as well as at sea, we shall expect them to have charge of (a) signalling Stations and landmarks; (b) lighthouses; (c) dangerous straits and harbours difficult of access; (d) sandbanks etc.: i.e. we should look tor them in connexion with all such situations as would in modern times be occupied by light-houses and landmarks, with a view to the avoidance of danger and the reduction of the risks of navigation. Let us see whether this generalisation can be confirmed.
We understand from Strabo [book 16, ch. 16] that the Pharos at Alexandria had an inscription that Sostratus the Knidian the son of Dexiphanes had erected it to the Saviour-gods on behalf of those who made sea-voyages : here we have the definite statement that the Pharos was under the care of the Dioscuri.”

In line six of the thirty third homeric hymn to the Dioscuri they are specifically called "σωτῆρας" "saviours". The Aśvinā are also often called Nā́satyā which most likrely means 'saviours' (a derivative of nasatí, 'safe return home'). As the Nā́satyā are invoked in a treaty between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, kings of the Hittites and the Mitanni respectively, it may well be that this is their oldest and truest name. This blog, needless to say, loves the folk-etymology, na+asatya "not untrue"="true"!

In Ṛgvedaḥ 10.40.13 the the Aśvinā are asked to kṛtaṃ tīrthaṃ ... śubhas patī "Make a ford Lords of splendour", and although this ford is a metaphorical one there is no good reason not to think that the Heavenly Twins didn't oversee the crossing of rivers, long before they were ever the overseers of sea-crossers/sea-farers. Is it coincidence that there is a chapel of St.Nicholas at the Wade (Vadum) of the Wantsum in Kent? And 10.106.9 is also of interest here:

bṛhanteva gambhareṣu pratiṣṭhām pādeva gādhaṃ tarate vidāthaḥ |

9 Like giants, ye will find firm ground to stand on in depths, like feet for one who fords a shallow.

9. Like the two lofty (world-halves) you will find firm standing in the depths, as his feet do for a man crossing a ford,

bṛhantau would be literally the "overly tall/great ones". Again we see the muddling of Gemini and Orion (see [here]). And thus we come to St. Christopher. Lucy M. Boston, The Children of Green Knowe (1954):

“Toseland was looking at the stone man. ‘Who is he?’

‘He is our own St Christopher, and these ruins are where his chapel stood until some stupid wretch pulled it down. There is always a St Christopher by an old ford, and the ford across this river was at the end of the garden. ...”

Fords lead us on to bridges, thus Zosimus New history (Ἱστορία Νέα):

[4.36.1]Ἄξιον δὲ τῶν ἱστορουμένων τι μὴ παραλιπεῖν τῆς παρούσης ἀφηγήσεως οὐκ ἀλλότριον. ἐν τοῖς κατὰ τὴν Ῥώμην ἱερατικοῖς τέλεσιν ἔφερον οἱ ποντίφικες τὰ πρῶτα. τούτους γεφυραίους ἄν τις καλέσειεν, εἰ πρὸς τὴν Ἑλλάδα φωνὴν ἡ προσηγορία μετενεχθείη. ταύτης δὲ ἔτυχον τῆς ἐπικλήσεως ἐξ αἰτίας τοιᾶσδε. τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὐδέπω τὴν διὰ τῶν ἀγαλμάτων ἐπισταμένων τιμήν, ἐν Θεσσαλίᾳ πρῶτον ἐδημιουργήθη θεῶν δείκηλα.
[4.36.2] ἑδῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ʽἄγνωστος γὰρ ἦν καὶ τούτων ἡ χρείἀ τὰ τῶν θεῶν ἐκτυπώματα τῇ κατὰ τὸν Πηνειὸν γεφύρᾳ καθίδρυσαν, τοὺς ἱερᾶσθαι τοῖς θεοῖς λαχόντας ἐκ τῆς πρώτης καθιδρύσεως γεφυραίους ἐξονομάσαντες. τοῦτο παραλαβόντες ἀφ̓ Ἑλλήνων Ῥωμαῖοι τοὺς τὴν πρώτην παῤ αὐτοῖς ἱερατικὴν ἔχοντας τάξιν ποντίφικας προσηγόρευσαν: οἷς συναριθμεῖσθαι τοὺς βασιλέας διὰ τὸ τῆς ἀξίας ὑπερέχον ἐνομοθέτησαν.

[4.36.1] Upon this occasion it may not be improper to relate a circumstance which has some reference to the present part of my narration. Among the Romans, the persons who had the superintendence of sacred things were the pontifices, whom we may term gephyraei if we translate the Latin word pontifices (which signifies bridge-makers) into the Greek.The origin of that appellation was this: at a period before mankind were acquainted with the mode of worshipping by statues, some images of the gods were first made in Thessaly.
[4.36.2] As there were not then any temples (for the use of them was likewise then unknown), they fixed up those figures of the gods on a bridge over the river Peneus, and called those who sacrificed to the gods, gephyraei, Priests of the Bridge, from the place where the images were first erected. Hence the Romans, deriving it from the Greeks, called their own priests pontifices, and enacted a law that kings, for the sake of dignity, should be considered of the number.

Friends of Guests ...

Pindar in the third Olympian ode marks:

Τυνδαρίδαις τε φιλοξείνοις

the hospitable sons of Tyndareus... .

The lost Χρηστομάθεια Γραμματική of an otherwise unknown Proclus, is known to have given a summary of the lost epic Cypria. This summary is to be found in various old Greek manuscripts. In this summary we find:

(2) ἐπιβὰς δὲ τῆι Λακεδαιμονίαι Ἀλέξανδρος ξενίζεται παρὰ τοῖς Τυνδαρίδαις, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐν τῆι Σπάρτηι παρὰ Μενελάωι <ἐπὶ ἐννέα ἡμέρας Ap.>·

(2) On landing in Lacedaemon, Alexander is entertained by the Tyndarids, and subsequently in Sparta by Menelaus, <for nine days>.

[Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Edited and translated by Martin L. West. Loeb Classical Library 497. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. lvs. 68 to 69]

Alexander here means Paris who was about to make off with their sister Helen, breaking the laws of hospitality, and the following overthrow of Troy, Paris' home town, can be seen as the Dioscuri awreaking themselves for this. As Paris goes on to Menelaus in Sparta, it seems the hall where Castor and Polydeuces feasted with Paris was not there. Therapne cannot be altogether ruled out, but its closeness to Sparta makes it unlikely. For if you had reached as far as Therapne, you might as well have gone on that little bit further to the king's hall at Sparta. They are only some two miles apart. Amyclae (Ἀμύκλαι) where Castor and Polydeuces had a house (see below) - hence they are called Amyclaei Fratres by Statius (Theb. 7.413 > "Amyclaeos (facinus!) concurrere fratres".) - lies twenty stadia (= 3 miles) south of Sparta is not much better. But the lost Las and Helus that lay further south still, and nearer the sea, might be more likely. For we know that, on the homeward sailing, Helen and Paris spent the first night on the island of Cranae it seems that Paris had come by way of Gythium to Sparta, Cranae being by Gythium (Paus 3.22.1 "ἡ δὲ νῆσος ἡ Κρανάη πρόκειται Γυθίου"), although Gythium as such is not marked by Homer. Still Gythium was the acknowledged ancient "port of Sparta" (Strabo 8.5.2 "Γύθειον τὸ τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπίνειον"), and so somewhere by Gythium would be my own best guess, maybe even on Cranae itself where a lighthouse can now be found. That Pausanias tells us that Gythium was set up by Heracles and Apollo (3.21.8), could be a cryptic reference to the Dioscuri and we have already marked that Hyginus says in his Astronomica the star sign of Gemini could show Apollo and Heracles as much Castor and Polydeucess.

It was whilst on the voyage of the Argo that Polydeuces has his boxing match with Amycus (Ἄμυκος), a son of Poseidon and the Bithynian nymph Melia. He was a king of the Bebryces (Βέβρυκες) a Thracian tribe who had crossed from Thrace to settle in Bithynia (Strabo), who made all his guests fight a boxing match with himself, and which he always won, killing his opponents. Apollonius and others however, will have Polydeuces kill Amycus. But Theocritus in his twenty-twoth idyll to the Dioscuri has Polydeuces beat Amycus only to spare him after swearing to do away with his barbarous custom henceforth.

τὸν μὲν ἄρα κρατέων περ ἀτάσθαλον οὐδὲν ἔρεξας,
ὦ πύκτη Πολύδευκες: ὄμοσσε δέ τοι μέγαν ὅρκον,
ὃν πατέρ᾽ ἐκ πόντοιο Ποσειδάωνα κικλήσκων,
μήποτ᾽ ἔτι ξείνοισιν ἑκὼν ἀνιηρὸς ἔσεσθαι.

But thou, good boxer Polydeuces, for all thy victory didst nothing presumptuous. Only wouldst thou have him swear a great oath by the name of his father Poseidon in the sea, that he would nevermore do annoyance unto strangers.

Herodotus Histories 6.127.3 :

“… καὶ Ἀζὴν ἐκ Παίου πόλιος Λαφάνης Εὐφορίωνος τοῦ δεξαμένου τε, ὡς λόγος ἐν Ἀρκαδίῃ λέγεται, τοὺς Διοσκούρους οἰκίοισι καὶ ἀπὸ τούτου ξεινοδοκέοντος πάντας ἀνθρώπους, ...”

“… and an Azenian from the town of Paeus, Laphanes, son of that Euphorion who, as the Arcadian tale relates, gave lodging to the Dioscuri, and ever since kept open house for all men; and Onomastus from Elis, son of Agaeus. … ”

Paeus is in Arcadia where the worship of the Dioscuri is slight.

From Pausanias, Description of Greece 3. 16. 2-3 we learn of their abiding interest in who lives in their old house at Sparta:

[2] ὑφαίνουσι δὲ κατὰ ἔτος αἱ γυναῖκες τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι χιτῶνα τῷ ἐν Ἀμύκλαις, καὶ τὸ οἴκημα ἔνθα ὑφαίνουσι Χιτῶνα ὀνομάζουσιν. οἰκία δὲ αὐτοῦ πεποίηται πλησίον: τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἀρχῆς φασιν αὐτὴν οἰκῆσαι τοὺς Τυνδάρεω παῖδας, χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον ἐκτήσατο Φορμίων Σπαρτιάτης. παρὰ τοῦτον ἀφίκοντο οἱ Διόσκουροι ξένοις ἀνδράσιν ἐοικότες: ἥκειν δὲ ἐκ Κυρήνης φήσαντες καταχθῆναί τε ἠξίουν παρ᾽ αὐτῷ καὶ οἴκημα ᾐτοῦντο ᾧ μάλιστα ἔχαιρον, ἡνίκα μετὰ ἀνθρώπων ἦσαν. [3] ὁ δὲ οἰκίας μὲν τῆς ἄλλης ἐκέλευεν αὐτοὺς ἔνθα ἂν ἐθέλωσιν οἰκῆσαι, τὸ δὲ οἴκημα οὐκ ἔφη δώσειν: θυγάτηρ γὰρ ἔτυχέν οἱ παρθένος ἔχουσα ἐν αὐτῷ δίαιταν. ἐς δὲ τὴν ὑστεραίαν παρθένος μὲν ἐκείνη καὶ θεραπεία πᾶσα ἡ περὶ τὴν παῖδα ἠφάνιστο, Διοσκούρων δὲ ἀγάλματα ἐν τῷ οἰκήματι εὑρέθη καὶ τράπεζά τε καὶ σίλφιον ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ.

[2] Each year the women weave a tunic for the Apollo at Amyclae, and they call Tunic the chamber in which they do their weaving. Near it is built a house, said to have been occupied originally by the sons of Tyndareus, but afterwards it was acquired by Phormion, a Spartan. To him came the Dioscuri in the likeness of strangers. They said that they had come from Cyrene, and asked to lodge with him, requesting to have the chamber which had pleased them most when they dwelt among men. [3] He replied that they might lodge in any other part of the house they wished, but that they could not have the chamber.
For it so happened that his maiden daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioscuri, a table, and silphium upon it.

Callimachus, Lyric Poems Pannychis Frag 227 (awend. C. A. Trypanis) :

ὦ Κάστορ [ἵππων δμήτορες] καὶ σὺ Πωλύδ[ευκες

καὶ τῶν ἀ[οίκων ῥύτορες] καὶ ξένω[ν ὁδηγοί

"O Castor, and you, Polydeuces, (tamers of horses), (protectors of the homeless) and (guides) of the guests . . ."

Simonides of Ceos ( Σιμωνίδης ὁ Κεῖος) had an interesting meeting with the twins, as is recorded by Cicero in his De Oratore 2.352-3:

"Dicunt enim, cum cenaret Crannone in Thessalia Simonides apud Scopam fortunatum hominem et nobilem cecinissetque id carmen, quod in eum scripsisset, in quo multa ornandi causa poetarum more in Castorem scripta et Pollucem fuissent, nimis illum sordide Simonidi dixisse se dimidium eius ei, quod pactus esset, pro illo carmine daturum; reliquum a suis Tyndaridis, quos aeque laudasset, peteret, si ei videretur.

Paulo post esse ferunt nuntiatum Simonidi, ut prodiret; iuvenis stare ad ianuam duo quosdam, qui eum magno opere evocarent; surrexisse illum, prodisse, vidisse neminem: hoc interim spatio conclave illud, ubi epularetur Scopas, concidisse; ea ruina ipsum cum cognatis oppressum suis interisse: quos cum humare vellent sui neque possent obtritos internoscere ullo modo, Simonides dicitur ex eo, quod meminisset quo eorum loco quisque cubuisset, demonstrator unius cuiusque sepeliendi fuisse; ..."

"For they relate, that when Simonides was at Crannon in Thessaly, at an entertainment given by Scopas, a man of rank and fortune, and had recited a poem which he had composed in his praise, in which, for the sake of embellishment, after the manner of the poets, there were many particulars introduced concerning Castor and Pollux, Scopas told Simonides, with extraordinary meanness, that he would pay him half the sum which he had agreed to give for the poem, and that he might ask the remainder, if he thought proper, from his Tyndaridae, to whom he had given an equal share of praise. [353] A short time later, they say that a message was brought in to Simonides, asking him to go out, as two youths were waiting at the gate who earnestly wished him to meet with them; so he arose, went forth, and found nobody. In the meantime the hall in which Scopas was feasting fell down, and he himself, and his company, were overwhelmed and buried in the ruins; and when their friends wanted to inter their remains, but could not possibly distinguish one from another, so much crushed were the bodies, Simonides is said, from his recollection of the place in which each had sat, to have given sufficient directions for their burial. "

Dancers

Pindar in his Tenth Nemean Ode calls them (line 52):

εὐρυχόρου ταμίαι Σπάρτας

"overseers (ταμίαι) of broad dancing-places of Sparta"

Plato in the seventh book of the Laws 796b marks Castor and Polydeuces as dancing.

οὐδ᾽ ὅσα ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς ἐστιν αὖ μιμήματα προσήκοντα μιμεῖσθαι παρετέον, κατὰ μὲν τὸν τόπον τόνδε Κουρήτων ἐνόπλια παίγνια, κατὰ δὲ Λακεδαίμονα Διοσκόρων. ἡ δὲ αὖ που παρ᾽ ἡμῖν κόρη καὶ δέσποινα, εὐφρανθεῖσα τῇ τῆς χορείας παιδιᾷ, κεναῖς χερσὶν οὐκ ᾠήθη δεῖν ἀθύρειν, [796ξ] πανοπλίᾳ δὲ παντελεῖ κοσμηθεῖσα, οὕτω τὴν ὄρχησιν διαπεραίνειν: ἃ δὴ πάντως μιμεῖσθαι πρέπον ἂν εἴη κόρους τε ἅμα καὶ κόρας, τὴν τῆς θεοῦ χάριν τιμῶντας, πολέμου τ᾽ ἐν χρείᾳ καὶ ἑορτῶν ἕνεκα.

Nor should we omit such mimic dances as are fitting for use by our choirs,—for instance, the sword-dance of the Curetes here in Crete, and that of the Dioscori in Lacedaemon; and at Athens, too, our Virgin-Lady gladdened by the pastime of the dance deemed it not seemly to sport with empty hands, [796c] but rather to tread the measure vested in full panoply. These examples it would well become the boys and girls to copy, and so cultivate the favour of the goddess, alike for service in war and for use at festivals.

Dancing with weapons is the beginnings of "drill".

Again, this is deeper than many might first think.

Ṛgvedaḥ 6.63.5
pra māyābhir māyinā bhūtam atra narā nṛtū janiman yajñiyānām ||
Famed for your magic arts were ye, magicians! amid the race of Gods, ye dancing Heroes!(Griffiths)

by your magic powers, o magicians, superior men, dancers.(Brereton & Jamison)

nṛtū is dancers.

The Spartan lads (ἔφηβοι) had a wone of dancing at the "Choros" in Sparta to Apollo, thus Pausanias 3.11.9:

Σπαρτιάταις δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς Πυθαέως τέ ἐστιν Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ Λητοῦς ἀγάλματα. Χορὸς δὲ οὗτος ὁ τόπος καλεῖται πᾶς, ὅτι ἐν ταῖς γυμνοπαιδίαις—ἑορτὴ δὲ εἴ τις ἄλλη καὶ αἱ γυμνοπαιδίαι διὰ σπουδῆς Λακεδαιμονίοις εἰσίν —ἐν ταύταις οὖν οἱ ἔφηβοι χοροὺς ἱστᾶσι τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι.

On their market-place the Spartans have images of Apollo Pythaeus, of Artemis and of Leto. The whole of this region is called Choros (Dancing), because at the Gymnopaediae, a festival which the Lacedaemonians take more seriously than any other, the lads (ἔφηβοι) perform dances in honour of Apollo.

This being the male version of the dances at the Walnut trees to Artemis that the Spartan maidens did (see Paus. 3.10.7).

Ploughmen (with yokis of a pleuch ...)

We have already marked the help Castor and Polydeuces give Jason in his ploughing with the fiery bulls at Colchis (see [here]) which arises from an old mythic strain, found in in Ṛgvedaḥ 1.117.21 and 8.22.6.

1.117.21

yavaṃ vṛkeṇāśvinā vapanteṣaṃ duhantā manuṣāya dasrā |
abhi dasyum bakureṇā dhamantoru jyotiś cakrathur āryāya ||

Ploughing and sowing barley, O ye Aśvins, milking out food for men, ye Wonder-Workers,
Blasting away the Dasyu with your trumpet, ye gave far-spreading light unto the Ārya.

8.22.6

daśasyantā manave pūrvyaṃ divi yavaṃ vṛkeṇa karṣathaḥ |
tā vām adya sumatibhiḥ śubhas patī aśvinā pra stuvīmahi ||

Ye with your plough, when favouring Manu with your help, ploughed the first harvest in the sky.
As such will we exalt you, Lords of splendour, now, O Aśvins, with our prayer and praise. [Griffith awending]

Rendering service to Manu, early in the day you plow barley with a wolf.
O Aśvins, lords of beauty, today we would praise you together with your favors.[J. P. Brereton & S.W. Jamison awending]

Builders

And there seems to be a lost tale or two about the Argonauts helping Æëtes (Αἰήτης) King of Colchis against the other folks of the Caucasus and of Scythia beyond. Whence the town of Dioscurias (Διοσκουριάς), seemingly the Georgian Sokhumi, is named for them having been set up by their charioteers Amphitus and Telchius (see Pliny Nat. Hist. Bk. 6. 5. 15-16).

Pausanias (3.24.7) in the ruins of the old town of Las on the hill called “Asia” Athena Ἀσιάς “Asiatic”

[7] ἔστι δὲ ἐν τοῖς ἐρειπίοις ναὸς Ἀθηνᾶς ἐπίκλησιν Ἀσίας, ποιῆσαι δὲ Πολυδεύκην καὶ Κάστορά φασιν ἀνασωθέντας ἐκ Κόλχων: εἶναι γὰρ καὶ Κόλχοις Ἀθηνᾶς Ἀσίας ἱερόν. μετασχόντας μὲν οὖν οἶδα Ἰάσονι τοῦ στόλου τοὺς Τυνδάρεω παῖδας: ὅτι δὲ Ἀθηνᾶν Ἀσίαν τιμῶσιν οἱ Κόλχοι, παρὰ Λακεδαιμονίων ἀκούσας γράφω. τῆς δὲ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν οἰκουμένης πόλεως κρήνη τέ ἐστι πλησίον διὰ τὴν χρόαν τοῦ ὕδατος καλουμένη Γαλακὼ καὶ πρὸς τῇ κρήνῃ γυμνάσιον: Ἑρμοῦ δὲ ἕστηκεν ἄγαλμα ἀρχαῖον.

[7] Among the ruins is a temple of Athena named Asia, made, it is said, by Polydeuces and Castor on their return home from Colchis; for the Colchians had a shrine of Athena Asia. I know that the sons of Tyndareus took part in Jason's expedition. As to the Colchians honoring Athena Asia, I give what I heard from the Lacedaemonians. Near the present town is a spring called Galaco （Milky） from the color of the water, and beside the spring a gymnasium, which contains an ancient statue of Hermes.

Along the way from Sparta to Therapne is a temple of Ares Theritas with a likeness of the god "said to have been brought from Colchis by the Dioscuri" (3.19.7-8) and it is more than likely they made this temple as well.

And 3.12.5:

προϊόντων δὲ κατὰ τὴν Ἀφεταΐδα ἡρῷά ἐστιν Ἴοπός τε κατὰ Λέλεγα ἢ Μύλητα γενέσθαι δοκοῦντος καὶ Ἀμφιαράου τοῦ Ὀικλέους· τοῦτο δὲ τοὺς Τυνδάρεω παῖδας νομίζουσιν ἅτε ἀνεψιῷ τῷ Ἀμφιαράῳ ποιῆσαι· καὶ αὐτοῦ Λέλεγός ἐστιν ἡρῷον,

Farther along the Aphetaïd Road are hero-shrines, of Iops, who is supposed to have been born in the time of Lelex or Myles, and of Amphiaraus the son of Oïcles. The last they think was made by the sons of Tyndareus, for that Amphiaraus was their cousin. There is a hero-shrine of Lelex himself.

3.17.1 - 2:

Λακεδαιμονίοις δὲ ἡ ἀκρόπολις μὲν ἐς ὕψος περιφανὲς ἐξίσχουσα οὐκ ἔστι, καθὰ δὴ Θηβαίοις τε ἡ Καδμεία καὶ ἡ Λάρισα Ἀργείοις: ὄντων δὲ ἐν τῇ πόλει λόφων καὶ ἄλλων, τὸ μάλιστα ἐς μετέωρον ἀνῆκον ὀνομάζουσιν ἀκρόπολιν.

ἐνταῦθα Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερὸν πεποίηται Πολιούχου καλουμένης καὶ Χαλκιοίκου τῆς αὐτῆς. τοῦ δὲ ἱεροῦ τῆς κατασκευῆς Τυνδάρεως καθὰ λέγουσιν ἤρξατο: ἀποθανόντος δὲ ἐκείνου δεύτερα οἱ παῖδες ἐξεργάσασθαι τὸ οἰκοδόμημα ἤθελον, ἀφορμὴ δέ σφισιν ἔμελλε τὰ ἐξ Ἀφιδναίων ἔσεσθαι λάφυρα. προαπολιπόντων δὲ καὶ τούτων, Λακεδαιμόνιοι πολλοῖς ἔτεσιν ὕστερον τόν τε ναὸν ὁμοίως καὶ τὸ ἄγαλμα ἐποιήσαντο Ἀθηνᾶς χαλκοῦν: Γιτιάδας δὲ εἰργάσατο ἀνὴρ ἐπιχώριος. ἐποίησε δὲ καὶ ᾁσματα Δώρια ὁ Γιτιάδας ἄλλα τε καὶ ὕμνον ἐς τὴν θεόν.

[1] ... The Lacedaemonians have no citadel rising to a conspicuous height like the Cadmea at Thebes and the Larisa at Argos. There are, however, hills in the city, and the highest of them they call the citadel.

[2] Here is built a sanctuary of Athena, who is called both City-protecting and Lady of the Bronze House. The building of the sanctuary was begun, they say, by Tyndareus. On his death his children were desirous of making a second attempt to complete the building, and the resources they intended to use were the spoils of Aphidna. They too left it unfinished, and it was many years afterwards that the Lacedaemonians made of bronze both the temple and the image of Athena. The builder was Gitiadas, a native of Sparta, who also composed Dorian lyrics, including a hymn to the goddess.

3.21.4:

ἐπὶ θάλασσαν δὲ ἐς Γύθιον καταβαίνοντί ἐστι Λακεδαιμονίοις ἡ κώμη καλουμένη Κροκέαι καὶ

λιθοτομία: μία μὲν πέτρα συνεχὴς οὐ διήκουσα, λίθοι δὲ ὀρύσσονται σχῆμα τοῖς ποταμίοις ἐοικότες, ἄλλως μὲν δυσεργεῖς, ἢν δὲ ἐπεργασθῶσιν, ἐπικοσμήσαιεν ἂν καὶ θεῶν ἱερά, κολυμβήθραις δὲ καὶ ὕδασι συντελοῦσι μάλιστα ἐς κάλλος. θεῶν δὲ αὐτόθι πρὸ μὲν τῆς κώμης Διὸς Κροκεάτα λίθου πεποιημένον ἄγαλμα ἕστηκε, Διόσκουροι δὲ ἐπὶ τῇ λιθοτομίᾳ χαλκοῖ.

As you go down to the sea towards Gythium you come to a village called Croceae and a quarry. It is not a continuous stretch of rock, but the stones they dig out are shaped like river pebbles; they are hard to work, but when worked sanctuaries of the gods might be adorned with them, while they are especially adapted for beautifying swimming-baths and fountains. Here before the village stands an image of Zeus of Croceae in marble, and the Dioscuri in bronze are at the quarry.

This brings us to the byname of the Heavenly Twins of Lapersae, thus Lycophron Αλεξάνδρα (Λυκόφρων) line 511:

“οῖς ἡμιθνήτοις διπιύχοις Λαπερσίοις”
“for the half divine Lapersian twins”

The meaning that has come down to us is given by Strabo 8. 5. 3 :

τὴν δὲ Λᾶν οἱ Διόσκουροί ποτε ἐκ πολιορκίας ἑλεῖν ἱστοροῦνται, ἀφ᾽ οὗ δὴ Λαπέρσαι προσηγορεύθησαν.5 καὶ Σοφοκλῆς λέγει που “ νὴ τὼ Λαπέρσα, νὴ τὸν Εὐρώταν τρίτον,
νὴ τοὺς ἐν Ἄργει καὶ κατὰ Σπάρτην θεούς.

As for Las, the story goes, the Dioscuri once captured it by siege, and it was from this fact that they got the appellation "Lapersae." And Sophocles says, “"by the two Lapersae, I swear, by Eurotas third, by the gods in Argos and about Sparta."”

Why Castor and Ploydeuces should sack Las, a town of Laconia, is not readily understood. And indeed it seems an unlikelihood. Tzetzes in his scholia on Lycophron 1389 says Λαπέρσαι δῆμος τῆς Ἀττικῆς is a deme of Attica (Λαπέρσαι δῆμος τῆς Ἀττικῆς), but as Martin P. Nilsson in The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (1932) says of this deme "which elsewhere is unknown", I think we can take this with a pinch of salt. Stephen of Byzantium in his Ethnika has:

Λαπέρσα, θηλυκῶς, ὄρος Λακωνικῆς, οὗ μέμνηται Ῥιανὸς ἐν Ἠλιακῶν πρώτω. ἀπὸ τῶν Λαπερσῶν Διοσκούρων. ...

Lapersa, feminine, a Laconic mountain, which is mentioned by Rhianus in the first ‘Heliacon’. From that the Dioscuri Lapersae. ...

This would also well outfold why Lycophron calls Zeus Λαπέρσιος.

However, James Rendel Harris in the first chapitle of his "The Dioscuri in the Christian legends" (1903) writes of Saints Florus and Laurus and how it seems they have soaked up an earlier worship of the Heavenly Twins. He marks that thet are araught in the Συναξἁριστής thus:

'These saints were twin-brethren, stonemasons by trade, who had learnt their craft from S. Patroclus and S. Maximus, who also themselves suffered martyrdom for Christ' (οὗτοι οἱ ἅγιοι ἦσαν μὲν ἀδελφοὶ δίδυμοι, λιθοξόοι δὲ τὴν τέχνην, ἐκμαθόντες αὐτὴν παρὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Πατρόκλου καὶ ἁγίου Μαξίμου, μαρτυρησάυτων καὶ αὐτῶν διὰ τὸν Χριστόν).”

He then goes on to suggest, that as being stone workers seems so important, that the temple-building of Castor and Polydeuces at Las spoken about by Pausanias needs more emphasis, and that the name of Lapersae understood as Λαπ+ερσαι might well mean "stone workers" though the word looks more Thracian than Greek.

"mysterious light of unknown origin"

John Fryer (died 1733) in his Travels well called the star-like fires of Castor and Polydeuces as the "ignis fatui of the watery elements", for they are akin to those lights which were seen on land and called "Will o' the wisp" and such like. And it is in this way we should understand Pausanias' words in his Guide... 4.16.9:

"διαλιπὼν δὲ ὅσον ἀκεσθῆναι τὸ τραῦμα, ἐς μὲν αὐτὴν Σπάρτην ἔξοδον ποιούμενος νύκτωρ ἀπετράπετο ὑπὸ φασμάτων Ἑλένης καὶ Διοσκούρων, ... ."

"After waiting only for the wound to heal, he [Aristomenes] was making an attack by night on Sparta itself, but was deterred by the appearance of Helen and of the Dioscuri."

And Pliny again in his Natural History book 2 ch.37 where he writes about these things says:

"existunt stellae et in mari terrisque. vidi nocturnis militum vigiliis inhaerere pilis pro vallo fulgorem effigie ea; ... ... hominum quoque capita vespertinis magno praesagio circumfulgent."

"These stars occur both at sea and at land. I have seen, during the night-watches of the soldiers, a luminous appearance, like a star, attached to the javelins on the ramparts. ... ...They also occasionally shine round the heads of men in the evening, which is considered as predicting something very important."

ἐπὶ Σάγρᾳ

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1.9)

As gods Castor and Polydeuces were said to have taken part in the fight on the Sagra between the Western Locri (Ἐπιζεφύριοι Λοκροί) and the folk of Croton. Strabo Geography 6.1.10:

"μετὰ δὲ Λοκροὺς Σάγρα, ὃν θηλυκῶς ὀνομάζουσιν, ἐφ᾽ οὗ βωμοὶ Διοσκούρων, περὶ οὓς Λοκροὶ μύριοι μετὰ Ῥηγίνων πρὸς δεκατρεῖς μυριάδας Κροτωνιατῶν συμβαλόντες ἐνίκησαν: ἀφ᾽ οὗ τὴν παροιμίαν πρὸς τοὺς ἀπιστοῦντας ἐκπεσεῖν φασιν ‘ἀληθέστερα τῶν ἐπὶ Σάγρᾳ.’ προσμεμυθεύκασι δ᾽ ἔνιοι καὶ διότι αὐθημερὸν τοῦ ἀγῶνος ἐνεστῶτος Ὀλυμπίασιν ἀπαγγελθείη τοῖς ἐκεῖ τὸ συμβάν, καὶ εὑρεθείη τὸ τάχος τῆς ἀγγελίας ἀληθές. ταύτην δὲ τὴν συμφορὰν αἰτίαν τοῖς Κροτωνιάταις φασὶ τοῦ μὴ πολὺν ἔτι συμμεῖναι χρόνον διὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν τότε πεσόντων ἀνδρῶν."

"After Locri comes the Sagra, a river which has a feminine name. On its banks are the altars of the Dioscuri, near which ten thousand Locri, with Rhegini, clashed with one hundred and thirty thousand Crotoniates and gained the victory—an occurrence which gave rise, it is said, to the proverb we use with incredulous people, "Truer than the result at Sagra." And some have gone on to add the fable that the news of the result was reported on the same day to the people at the Olympia when the games were in progress, and that the speed with which the news had come was afterwards verified. This misfortune of the Crotoniates is said to be the reason why their city did not endure much longer, so great was the multitude of men who fell in the battle."

Justinus' Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus (awent by the Rev. John Selby Watson) book 20:

"[2] ... 9 Recuperata sanitate non diu Crotonienses quieuere. 10 Itaque indignantes in oppugnatione Siris auxilium contra se a Locrensibus latum, bellum his intulerunt. 11 Quo metu territi Locrenses ad Spartanos decurrunt ; auxilium supplices deprecantur. 12 Illi longinqua militia grauati auxilium a Castore et Polluce petere eos iubent. 13 Neque legati responsum sociae urbis spreuerunt profectique in proximum templum facto sacrificio auxilium deorum inplorant. 14 Litatis hostiis obtentoque, ut rebantur, quod petebant, haud secus laeti quam si deos ipsos secum auecturi essent, puluinaria iis in naui conponunt faustisque profecti ominibus solacia suis pro auxiliis deportant.

[3] 1 His cognitis Crotonienses et ipsi legatos ad oraculum Delphos mittunt, uictoriae facultatem bellique prosperos euentus deprecantes. 2 Responsum prius uotis hostes quam armis uincendos. 3 Cum uouissent Apollini decimas praedae, Locrenses et uoto hostium et responso dei cognito nonas uouerunt tacitamque eam rem habuere, ne uotis uincerentur. 4 Itaque cum in aciem processissent et Crotoniensium centum uiginti milia armatorum constitissent, Locrenses paucitatem suam circumspicientes - nam sola XV milia militum habebant - omissa spe uictoriae in destinatam mortem conspirant, 5 tantusque ardor ex desperatione singulos cepit ut uictores se putarent, si non inulti morerentur. 6 Sed dum mori honeste quaerunt, feliciter uicerunt, nec alia causa uictoriae fuit quam quod desperauerunt. 7 Pugnantibus Locris aquila ab acie numquam recessit eosque tam diu circumuolauit quoad uincerent. 8 In cornibus quoque duo iuuenes diuerso a ceteris armorum habitu, eximia magnitudine et albis equis et coccineis paludamentis pugnare uisi sunt nec ultra apparuerunt quam pugnatum est. 9 Hanc admirationem auxit incredibilis famae uelocitas. Nam eadem die, qua in Italia pugnatum est, et Corintho et Athenis et Lacedaemone nuntiata est uictoria."

"2 ... After they had recovered their health, the Crotonians were not long disposed to be quiet; and being indignant that, at the siege of Siris, assistance had been sent against them by the Locrians, they made war on that people. The Locrians, seized with alarm, had recourse to the Spartans, begging their assistance with humble entreaties. But the Spartans, disliking so distant an expedition, told them “to ask assistance from Castor and Pollux.” This answer, from a city in alliance with them, the deputies did not despise, but going into the nearest temple, and offering sacrifice, they implored aid from those gods. The signs from the victims appearing favourable, and their request, as they supposed, being granted, they were no less rejoiced than if they were to carry the gods with them; and, spreading couches for them in the vessel, and setting out with happy omens, they brought their countrymen comfort though not assistance.

3 This affair becoming known, the Crotonians themselves also sent deputies to the oracle at Delphi, asking the way to victory and a prosperous termination of the war. The answer given was, that “the enemies must be conquered by vows, before they could be conquered by arms.” They accordingly vowed the tenth of the spoil to Apollo, but the Locrians, getting information of this vow, and the god’s answer, vowed a ninth part, keeping the matter however secret, that they might not be outdone in vows. When they came into the field, therefore, and a hundred and twenty thousand Crotonians stood in arms against them, the Locrians, contemplating the smallness of their own force (for they had only fifteen thousand men), and abandoning all hope of victory, devoted themselves to certain death; and such courage, arising out of despair, was felt by each, that they thought they would be as conquerors, if they did not fall without avenging themselves. But while they sought only to die with honour, they had the good fortune to gain the victory; nor was there any other cause of their success but their desperation. While the Locrians were fighting, an eagle constantly attended on their army, and continued flying about them till they were conquerors. On the wings, also, were seen two young men fighting in armour different from that of the rest, of an extraordinary stature, on white horses (albis equis) and in scarlet cloaks (coccineis paludamentis); nor were they visible longer than the battle lasted. The incredible swiftness of the report of the battle made this wonderful appearance more remarkable; for on the same day on which it was fought in Italy, the victory was published at Corinth, Athens, and Lacedaemon."

And the Dioscuri show up later at the Romans' fight at Lake Regillus against the Latins, 15th. July 499 or 496B.C.E. thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities Book 6, ch. 13 (awending E. Cary):

"[6,13] Ἐν ταύτῃ λέγονται τῇ μάχῃ Ποστομίῳ τε τῷ δικτάτορι καὶ τοῖς περὶ αὐτὸν τεταγμένοις ἱππεῖς δύο φανῆναι, κάλλει τε καὶ μεγέθει μακρῷ κρείττους, ὧν ἡ καθ´ ἡμᾶς φύσις ἐκφέρει, ἐναρχόμενοι γενειᾶν, ἡγούμενοί τε τῆς Ῥωμαικῆς ἵππου καὶ τοὺς ὁμόσε χωροῦντας τῶν Λατίνων παίοντες τοῖς δόρασι καὶ προτροπάδην ἐλαύνοντες. Καὶ μετὰ τὴν τροπὴν τῶν Λατίνων καὶ τὴν ἅλωσιν τοῦ χάρακος αὐτῶν περὶ δείλην ὀψίαν τὸ τέλος λαβούσης τῆς μάχης, ἐν τῇ Ῥωμαίων ἀγορᾷ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ὀφθῆναι δύο νεανίσκοι λέγονται, πολεμικὰς ἐνδεδυκότες στολὰς μήκιστοί τε καὶ κάλλιστοι καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἡλικίαν ἔχοντες, αὐτοί τε φυλάττοντες ἐπὶ τῶν προσώπων ὡς ἐκ μάχης ἡκόντων τὸ ἐναγώνιον σχῆμα, καὶ τοὺς ἵππους ἱδρῶτι διαβρόχους ἐπαγόμενοι. Ἄρσαντες δὲ τῶν ἵππων ἑκάτερον καὶ ἀπονίψαντες ἀπὸ τῆς λιβάδος, ἣ παρὰ τὸ ἱερὸν τῆς Ἑστίας ἀναδίδωσι λίμνην ποιοῦσα ἐμβύθιον ὀλίγην, πολλῶν αὐτοὺς περιστάντων καὶ εἴ τι φέρουσιν ἐπὶ κοινὸν ἀπὸ στρατοπέδου μαθεῖν ἀξιούντων, τήν τε μάχην αὐτοῖς φράζουσιν, ὡς ἐγένετο καὶ ὅτι νικῶσιν· οὓς μεταχωρήσαντας ἐκ τῆς ἀγορᾶς ὑπ´ οὐδενὸς ἔτι λέγουσιν ὀφθῆναι, πολλὴν ζήτησιν αὐτῶν ποιουμένου τοῦ καταλειφθέντος τῆς πόλεως ἡγεμόνος. Ὡς δὲ τῇ κατόπιν ἡμέρᾳ τὰς παρὰ τοῦ δικτάτορος ἐπιστολὰς ἔλαβον οἱ τῶν κοινῶν προεστῶτες, καὶ σὺν τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασι τοῖς ἐν τῇ μάχῃ γενομένοις καὶ τὰ περὶ τῆς ἐπιφανείας τῶν δαιμόνων ἔμαθον, νομίσαντες τῶν αὐτῶν θεῶν εἶναι ἄμφω τὰ φάσματα ὥσπερ εἰκὸς Διοσκούρων ἐπείσθησαν εἶναι τὰ εἴδωλα.

Ταύτης ἐστὶ τῆς παραδόξου καὶ θαυμαστῆς τῶν δαιμόνων ἐπιφανείας ἐν Ῥώμῃ πολλὰ σημεῖα, ὅ τε νεὼς ὁ τῶν Διοσκούρων, ὃν ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς κατεσκεύασεν ἡ πόλις, ἔνθα ὤφθη τὰ εἴδωλα, καὶ ἡ παρ´ αὐτῷ κρήνη καλουμένη τε τῶν θεῶν τούτων καὶ ἱερὰ εἰς τόδε χρόνου νομιζομένη, θυσίαι τε πολυτελεῖς, ἃς καθ´ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ὁ δῆμος ἐπιτελεῖ διὰ τῶν μεγίστων ἱερέων ἐν μηνὶ Κυιντιλίῳ λεγομένῳ ταῖς καλουμέναις εἰδοῖς, ἐν ᾗ κατώρθωσαν ἡμέρᾳ τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον· ὑπὲρ ἅπαντα δὲ ταῦτα ἡ μετὰ τὴν θυσίαν ἐπιτελουμένη πομπὴ τῶν ἐχόντων τὸν δημόσιον ἵππον, οἳ κατὰ φυλάς τε καὶ λόχους κεκοσμημένοι στοιχηδὸν ἐπὶ τῶν ἵππων ὀχούμενοι πορεύονται πάντες, ὡς ἐκ μάχης ἥκοντες ἐστεφανωμένοι θαλλοῖς ἐλαίας, καὶ πορφυρᾶς φοινικοπαρύφους ἀμπεχόμενοι τηβέννας τὰς καλουμένας τραβέας, ἀρξάμενοι μὲν ἀφ´ ἱεροῦ τινος Ἄρεος ἔξω τῆς πόλεως ἱδρυμένου, διεξιόντες δὲ τήν τ´ ἄλλην πόλιν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἀγορᾶς παρὰ τὸ τῶν Διοσκούρων ἱερὸν παρερχόμενοι, ἄνδρες ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ πεντακισχίλιοι φέροντες, ὅσα παρὰ τῶν ἡγεμόνων ἀριστεῖα ἔλαβον ἐν ταῖς μάχαις, καλὴ καὶ ἀξία τοῦ μεγέθους τῆς ἡγεμονίας ὄψις. Ταῦτα μὲν ὑπὲρ τῆς γενομένης ἐπιφανείας τῶν Διοσκούρων λεγόμενά τε καὶ πραττόμενα ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἔμαθον· ἐξ ὧν τεκμήραιτ´ ἄν τις, ὡς θεοφιλεῖς ἦσαν οἱ τότε ἄνθρωποι, σὺν ἄλλοις πολλοῖς καὶ μεγάλοις."

" 1 It is said that in this battle two men on horseback, far excelling in both beauty and stature those our human stock produces, and just growing their first beard, appeared to Postumius, the dictator, and to those arrayed about him, and charged at the head of the Roman horse, striking with their spears all the Latins they encountered and driving them headlong before them. And after the flight of the Latins and the capture of their camp, the battle having come to an end in the late afternoon, two youths are said to have appeared in the same manner in the Roman Forum attired in military garb, very tall and beautiful and of the same age, themselves retaining on their countenances as having come from a battle, the look of combatants, and the horses they led being all in a sweat. 2 And when they had each of them watered their horses and washed them at the fountain which rises near the temple of Vesta and forms a small but deep pool, and many people stood about them and inquired if they brought any news from the camp, they related how the battle had gone and that the Romans were the victors. And it is said that after they left the Forum they were not seen again by anyone, though great search was made for them by the man who had been left in command of the city. 3 The next day, when those at the head of affairs received the letters from the dictator, and besides the other particulars of the battle, learned also of the appearance of the divinities, they concluded, as we may reasonably infer, that it was the same gods who had appeared in both places, and were convinced that the apparitions had been those of Castor and Pollux.

4 Of this extraordinary and wonderful appearance of these gods there are many monuments at Rome, not only the temple of Castor and Pollux which the city erected in the Forum at the place where their apparitions had been seen, and the adjacent fountain, which bears the names of these gods and is to this day regarded as holy, but also the costly sacrifices which the people perform each year through their chief priests in the month called Quintilis, on the day known as the Ides, the day on which they gained this victory. But above all these things there is the procession performed after the sacrifice by those who have a public horse and who, being arrayed by tribes and centuries, ride in regular ranks on horseback, as if they came from battle, crowned with olive branches and attired in the purple robes with stripes of scarlet which they call trabeae. They begin their procession from a certain temple of Mars built outside the walls, and going through several parts of the city and the Forum, they pass by the temple of Castor and Pollux, sometimes to the number even of five thousand, wearing whatever rewards for valour in battle they have received from their commanders, a fine sight and worthy of the greatness of the Roman dominion. 5 These are the things I have found both related and performed by the Romans in commemoration of the appearance of Castor and Pollux; and from these, as well as from many other important instances, one may judge how dear to the gods were the men of those times."

Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3. 5 also marks that there was a horse's hoof print in a stone of the shore of Lake Regillus.

Pausanias (4.4.1 to 4.5.5) gives the origins of the Messenian War between the Dorians settled in Messenia and Laconia. Though the fraud over the lots (see Paus. 4.3.3 to 4.3.5; 4.5.1) would trace the contention back even further. But then there is the sacrilege of Panormos and Gonippos (4.27.1 to 3) against Castor and Polydeuces:

[4.27.1] τὸ δὲ τῶν Τυνδάρεω παίδων μήνιμα ἐς τοὺς Μεσσηνίους ἤρξατο μὲν πρὸ τῆς ἐν Στενυκλήρῳ μάχης, γενέσθαι δὲ αὐτὸ δι᾽ αἰτίαν τοιάνδε εἰκάζω. μειράκια ὡραῖα ἐξ Ἀνδανίας, Πάνορμος καὶ Γώνιππος, τά τε ἄλλα οἰκείως εἶχον ἀλλήλοις καὶ κοινὰς ἐπὶ τὰς μάχας ἐξόδους καὶ καταδρομὰς ἐποιοῦντο ἐς τὴν Λακωνικήν. [2] Λακεδαιμονίων δὲ ἐπὶ στρατοπέδου Διοσκούροις ἑορτὴν ἀγόντων καὶ ἤδη πρὸς πότον καὶ παιδιὰς τετραμμένων μετὰ τὸ ἄριστον, ὁ Γώνιππος καὶ ὁ Πάνορμος χιτῶνας λευκοὺς καὶ χλαμύδας πορφυρᾶς ἐνδύντες ἐπί τε ἵππων τῶν καλλίστων ὀχούμενοι καὶ ἐπὶ ταῖς κεφαλαῖς πίλους, ἐν δὲ ταῖς χερσὶ δόρατα ἔχοντες ἐπιφαίνονται Λακεδαιμονίοις. οἱ δὲ ὡς εἶδον, προσεκύνουν τε καὶ εὔχοντο, ἀφῖχθαι δοκοῦντές σφισιν αὐτοὺς ἐς τὴν θυσίαν τοὺς Διοσκούρους. [3] οἱ νεανίσκοι δὲ ὡς ἅπαξ ἀνεμίχθησαν, διεξήλαυνον διὰ πάντων παίοντες τοῖς δόρασι, καὶ ἤδη κειμένων πολλῶν ἀποχωροῦσιν ἐς Ἀνδανίαν, καθυβρίσαντες τῶν Διοσκούρων τῇ θυσίᾳ. τοῦτο ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν προήγαγε τοὺς Διοσκούρους ἐς τὸ ἔχθος τὸ Μεσσηνίων: .”

[4.27.1]The wrath (μήνιμα) of the sons of Tyndareus against the Messenians began before the battle in Stenyclerus, and arose, I think, for the following reason. Panormus and Gonippus of Andania, young men in the bloom of youth, were close friends in all things, and marched together into battle and on raids into Laconia.

[4.27.2] The Lacedaemonians were keeping a feast of the Dioscuri in camp and had turned to drinking and sports after the midday meal, when Gonippus and Panormus appeared to them, riding on the finest horses and dressed in white tunics and scarlet cloaks, with caps on their heads and spears in their hands. When the Lacedaemonians saw them they bowed down and prayed, thinking that the Dioscuri themselves had come to their sacrifice.

[4.27.3] When once they had come among them, the youths rode right through them, striking with their spears, and when many had been killed, returned to Andania, having outraged the sacrifice to the Dioscuri. It was this, in my view, that roused the Dioscuri to their hatred of the Messenians.

In the aftermath of the fight at the “Boar’s Grave” when Aristomenes was following the fleeing Spartans we read in Pausanias 4.16.5

ἔνθα δὴ καὶ παρ᾽ ἀχράδα πεφυκυῖάν που τοῦ πεδίου, παρὰ ταύτην Ἀριστομένην οὐκ εἴα παραθεῖν ὁ μάντις Θέοκλος: καθέζεσθαι γὰρ τοὺς Διοσκούρους ἔφασκεν ἐπὶ τῇ ἀχράδι. Ἀριστομένης δὲ εἴκων τῷ θυμῷ καὶ οὐκ ἀκροώμενος τὰ πάντα τοῦ μάντεως ὡς κατὰ τὴν ἀχράδα ἐγίνετο, ἀπόλλυσι τὴν ἀσπίδα, Λακεδαιμονίοις τε τὸ ἁμάρτημα τοῦ Ἀριστομένους παρέσχεν αὐτῶν ἀποσωθῆναί τινας ἐκ τῆς φυγῆς: διέτριψε γὰρ τὴν ἀσπίδα ἀνευρεῖν πειρώμενος.

There was a wild pear-tree growing in the plain, beyond which Theoclus the seer forbade him to pass, for he said that the Dioscuri were seated on the tree. Aristomenes, in the heat of passion, did not hear all that the seer said, and when he reached the tree, lost his shield, and his disobedience gave to the Lacedaemonians an opportunity for some to escape from the rout. For he lost time trying to recover his shield.

And 4.16.9:

διαλιπὼν δὲ ὅσον ἀκεσθῆναι τὸ τραῦμα, ἐς μὲν αὐτὴν Σπάρτην ἔξοδον ποιούμενος νύκτωρ ἀπετράπετο ὑπὸ φασμάτων Ἑλένης καὶ Διοσκούρων,
After waiting only for the wound to heal, he was making an attack by night on Sparta itself, but was deterred by the appearance of Helen and of the Dioscuri.

It was only once their wrath ended that we have the Spartan defeat at Leuctra by Epaminondas and the homecoming of the Messenians. Pausanias 4.26.6:

ἀποροῦντι οὖν αὐτῷ πρεσβύτην ἄνδρα, ἱεροφάντῃ μάλιστα εἰκασμένον, νύκτωρ φασὶν ἐπιστάντα εἰπεῖν: ‘σοὶ μὲν δῶρά ἐστι παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ κρατεῖν ὅτῳ ἂν μεθ᾽ ὅπλων ἐπέρχῃ: καὶ ἢν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γένῃ, ἔγωγε ὦ Θηβαῖε ποιήσω μή ποτε ἀνώνυμον μηδὲ ἄδοξόν σε γενέσθαι. σὺ δὲ Μεσσηνίοις γῆν τε πατρίδα καὶ πόλεις ἀπόδος, ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὸ μήνιμα ἤδη σφίσι πέπαυται τὸ Διοσκούρων’.

To Epaminondas in his difficulty it is said that an ancient man, closely resembling a priest of Demeter, appeared in the night and said: “My gift to thee is that thou shalt conquer whomsoever thou dost assail; and when thou dost pass from men, Theban, I will cause thy name to be unforgotten and give thee glory. But do thou restore to the Messenians their fatherland and cities, for now the wrath of the Dioscuri against them hath ceased.”

Castor and Polydeuces give rise to the cult of saints George and Demetrius. These saints came West in the aftermath of the first crusade following an incident after the fall of Antioch. Having taken the city the crusaders were themselves beset by the Turks. William of Malmesbury has the details in his Gesta Regum Anglorum bk. 4, ch. 2 (awend. J. A. Giles):

§ 364. Nec diu opima victoria laetati, postero die Turcorum obsidionem extra muros ingemuere.

Venerant illi a Sansadole invitati, duce Corbaguath satrapa orientali, qui ab imperatore Persidis acceperat trecenta millia cum viginti septem admiratis. Horum sexaginta in arcem urbis per scopulos ascendere, advocantibus eos Turcis qui adhuc ibidem remanserant. Itaque illi crebris excursibus Christianos potissimum fatigabant, nec erat ulla spes nisi in Dei auxilio; cum bello infestatis cresceret inedia, inedia semper magnorum comes prima malorum. Quapropter, triduano prius cum letaniis exacto jejunio, legatus Petrus heremita mittitur ad Turcos.

Is familiari sibi eloquio ista prosecutus est, ut Turci Christianorum terras, quas olimpervaserant indebite, nunc evacuent voluntarie. Justum esse, ut sicut Christiani non infestant Persidam, ita Turci non urgeant Asiam. Proinde aut libenti discessu nativum solum repetant, aut mane futuro bellum expectent ; sortem per duos vel quatuor vel octo experiantur, ne periculum ad totum vergat exercitum.

§ 365. Non erat Corbaguath ejus facilitatis ut legatum dignaretur responso ; sed scacchis ludens, et dentibus infrendens, inanem dimisit: hoc tantum dicto, Jam conclamatam esse Francorum superbiam. Ille quoque concite rediens exercitum de insolentia Turci certiorem reddidit. Tunc omnes se alterutrum animantes, etiam per praeconem clamare fecere, ut quisque nocte illa equo suo pro posse præbendam porrigeret, ne sequenti die multiformibus gyris fatigatus deficeret. Jamque mane inclaruerat, cum, per acies dispositi, vexillis in hostem infestis prodeunt.Primam turmam duxere duo Roberti, Normannus et Flandrensis, et Hugo magnus ; secundam dux Godefridus ; tertiam Podiensis

episcopus. Boamundus in extremo agmine incedebat, caeteris subsidio futurus. Raimundus in urbe remanserat, qui nostris receptui provideret, si necesse foret. Hoc Turci eminus conspicati, primo quid esset hæsere. Mox cognito vexillo episcopi, quod eum maxime metuerent, quia illum papam Christianorum et incentorem bellorum dictitarent, antequam ferirentur, videntes quod nostri tam animose et incunctanter procederent, terga dedere: alteri quoque, insperato exilientes tripudio, cedentes cecidere, quantum vel peditum ilia vel equitum calcaria sufficere potuerunt. Persuadebantque sibi videre se antiquos martyres, qui olim milites fuissent, quique mortis pretio parassent præmia vitae, Georgium dico et Demetrium, vexillis levatis a partibus montanis accurrere, jacula in hostes, in se auxilium vibrantes. Nec diffitendum est affuisse martyres Christianis, sicut quondam angelos Macchabæis simili duntaxat causa pugnantibus.

Reversi vero in prædam, tanta in castris illorum reperiunt quae cujuslibet avidissimi exercitus satietatem possent vel temperare vel extinguere. Hoc prælium actum est anno incarnationis Dominicae millesimo nonagesimo octavo, quarto kalendas Julii; nam pridie nonas Julii capta fuerat urbs. Mox, kalendis Augusti sequentibus, Podiensis episcopus, Christianorum vexillifer, illius boni auctor praecipuus, communi mortalium conditioni feliciter manus dedit ; et Hugo magnus, concessu ut aiunt heroum, Franciam rediit, causatus continuam viscerum tortionem.

"Not long rejoicing in this complete victory, they had the next day to lament being themselves besieged by the Turks from without. For the forces which had been solicited by Sansadol were now arrived under the command of Corbaguath, an eastern satrap, who had obtained from the emperor of Persia three hundred thousand men under twentyseven commanders. Sixty thousand of these ascended over the rocks to the citadel, by desire of the Turks, who still remained in possession of it. These woefully harassed the Christians by frequent sallies : nor was there any hope left, but from the assistance of God, since want was now added to the miseries of war—want, the earliest attendant on great calamities. Wherefore, after a fast of three days, and earnest supplications, Peter the hermit was sent ambassador to the Turks, who spake with his usual eloquence to the following effect : " That the Turks should now voluntarily evacuate the Christian territory, which they had formerly unjustly invaded ; that it was but right, as the Christians did not attack Persia, that the Turks should not molest Asia ; that they should therefore, either by a voluntary departure, seek their own country, or expect an attack on the following morning ; that they might try their fortune, by two, or four, or eight, that danger might not accrue to the whole army."

Corbaguath condescended not to honour the messenger even with a reply; but playing at chess and gnashing his teeth, dismissed him as he came ; merely observing, " that the pride of the Franks was at an end." Hastily returning, Peter apprised the army of the insolence of the Turk. Each then animating the other, it was publicly ordered, that every person should, that night, feed his horse as plentifully as possible, lest he should falter from the various evolutions of the following day. And now the morning dawned, when, drawn up in bodies, they proceeded, with hostile standard, against the enemy. The first band was led by the two Roberts, of Normandy and Flanders, and Hugh the Great; the second by Godfrey ; the third by the bishop of Puy ; the reserve by Boamund, as a support to the rest. Raimund continued in the city, to cover the retreat of our party, in case it should be necessary. The Turks, from a distance, observing their movements, were, at first, dubious what they could mean. Afterwards, recognizing the standard of the bishop, for they were extremely afraid of him, as they said he was the pope of the Christians and the fomenter of the war; and seeing our people advancing so courageously and quickly, they fled ere they were attacked. Our party, too, exhilarated with unexpected joy, slew them as they were flying, as far as the strength of the infantry, or exertion of the cavalry, would permit. They imagined, moreover, that they saw the ancient martyrs, who had formerly been soldiers, and who had gained eternal remuneration by their death, I allude to George and Demetrius, hastily approaching with upraised banner from the mountainous districts, hurling darts against the enemy, but assisting the Franks. Nor is it to be denied, that the martyrs did assist the Christians, as the angels formerly did the Maccabees, fighting for the selfsame cause. Returning, then, to the spoil, they found in their camp sufficient to satisfy, or even totally to glut, the covetousness of the greediest army. This battle took place on the fourth before the kalends of July; for the city had been taken the day before the nones of June. Soon after, on the kalends of the ensuing August, the bishop of Puy, the leader of the Christians, and chief author of this laudable enterprise, joyfully yielded to the common lot of mortals; and Hugh the Great, by permission of the chiefs, as it is said, returned to France, alleging as a reason, the perpetual racking of his bowels."

Needless to say Demetrius was forgotten about, and thus wherever he goes George is only a half of the Heavenly Twins.

As I have written in an earlier post ([here]), the myths about the Heavenly Twins leach over into the myths of other gods so that it is sometimes hard to see where one begins and the other ends. In the North the worship of the Heavenly Twins has often become blended with that of Wōden/Óðin and Þunor/Þór and/or Tīw/Týr We can maybe understand this best through what we find later among the ervewards of the Suebi in Gallæcia, and among the ervewards of the Goths more widely in Spain. For these have hidden their old worship of Wōden/Óðin under the new name of St. James the Great the "patron saint" of "Gothic" Spain.

"If you want to understand paganism, study Catholicism, its lineal descendant. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

As such James shows himself to Charlemagne in the Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi cap. 1, together with the "viam stellarum" or Milky Way, that is, he is the star-sign of Orion the Hunter, warning the king to come and free his earthly shrine in Gallæcia "a Sarracenis". That the neighbouring star-signs of Orion and Gemini are often confused see [here]. At the fightlock at Clavijo on 23rd. May, 844 the saint was said (by 1243 at least!), to have shown up on a white horse to take part on the side of the Ramiro I. Were it not for his two eyes, his sword rather than a spear, and the cockleshells, we could have here Óðin out of an old saga. But the 23rd. May is when the sun is in the sign of Gemini.

But if James is indeed for one of the Dioscuri, where you might ask in all this is his twin-brother? You might not see him, but he is there nevertheless, for everyone knows St. James the Great is the twin brother of St. John. Mark. 3:17 is interesting reading in Old English:

"... and Iacobum Zebedei, and Iohannem his broðor, and him naman onsette Boaneries, þæt is, Ðunres bearn."

"... and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, and set on them the name Boaneries, that is, Ðunor's sons."

And in their sitting on the right and left sides of the solar Jesus we see an old pattern arising which set Cautes and Cautopatis either side of Mithras and made Castor and Polydeuces the followers of Herakles and Jason.

But be this all as it is, we can see through all how Castor and Polydeukes were thought to take an interest in fights and fighting men, and in the overseeing of the will of their heavenly father, and of the gods as a whole, on earth.

Pindar in his Tenth Nemean Ode Zeus offers Polydeuces a heavenly life but the gods he marks out whose fellowship he will then be in are, besides himself, the two fight-loving ones Athena and Ares (line 84):

" αὐτὸς Οὔλυμπον θέλεις ναίειν ἐμοὶ σύν τ᾽ Ἀθαναίᾳ κελαινεγχεῖ τ᾽ Ἄρει,..."

"and to dwell thyself in Olympus with me, and with Athene, and with Ares of the darksome spear ..." (awending Sir John Sandys).

Pausanias 3.19.7 marks a shrine (ἱερόν) to Ares on the way from Amyklai to Therapne with a likeness of the god that Castor and Polydeukces were thought to have brought back from Colchis on the Argo. And at 3.24.7 in the ruins of the old town of Las on the hill called “Asia” there was a temple (ναὸς) to Athena Ἀσιάς, “Asiatic” Athena, made (ποιῆσαι) by the twins when they got home in thanksgiving for this. At 3.14.8-10 before the youths of Sparta go to fight at the "Plane Trees" (Πλατανιστᾶς) they offer a puppy to the god Enyalius, which is taken as another name for Ares, at the "Phœbæum" (Φοιβαῖον) near Therapne. And they watch a boar fight which foretells which team will win at the Planes. I mark here that the two ways in to the island of the Planes are overseen by strong man Hercules and one-eyed Lycurgus the law-giver, yet the Dioscuri are not far off as Pausanias marks of the "Phœbæum": "Phœbæum, in which is a temple (ναός) of the Dioscuri" (3.20.2). Clement of Alexandria in his Protrepticus 2.30.5 (awend. William Wilson):

" Προσίτω δὲ καὶ ὁ τὰ Κυπριακὰ ποιήματα γράψας· Κάστωρ μὲν θνητός, θανάτου δέ οἱ αἶσα πέπρωται· αὐτὰρ ὅ γ' ἀθάνατος Πολυδεύκης, ὄζος Ἄρηος."

"And, in addition, he who wrote the Cyprian poems says Castor was mortal, and death was decreed to him by fate; but Pollux was immortal, being the progeny of Mars."

"ὄζος Ἄρηος" "offspring of Ares" - which Wilson awends as "progeny of Mars" above - not only shows us how Ares or Mars might become thought of as the father of the twins by mistake, by those who do not know that this wording is bestowed liberally by the old pœtes, see Iliad 2.540, 12.188, and is not to be taken literally. Akin to it is ἀρηΐφιλος "dear friend of Ares" (see Iliad 3. 232) and maybe also Þjóðólfr ór Hvini's brooking of “Týs áttungr” in his Ynglingatal.

Into Attica

Their main deed was the leading of an heere into Attica to get back their sister Helen. Theseus coming to Sparta had broken the rules of hospitality by stealing his host's daughter. And she was then kept in the stronghold-town of Aphidna in Attica. The tale is told in many ways to spare the feelings of the Athens-folk or those of Sparta (see Herodotus 9.73; Diod. Sicul. 4.63; Plut. Thes. 32; Paus. 1.17.5, 41.3.). But as to what happens next, the basic outline is given by Diodorus Siculus in his Library 4.63.5:

"... λέγουσι τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς τῆς Ἑλένης Διοσκόρους στρατεύσαντας ἐπὶ τὴν Ἄφιδναν καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἑλόντας ταύτην μὲν κατασκάψαι, τὴν δ´ Ἑλένην ἀπαγαγεῖν εἰς Λακεδαίμονα παρθένον οὖσαν, καὶ μετ´ αὐτῆς δούλην τὴν μητέρα Θησέως Αἴθραν."

"... they say that Helen’s brothers, the Dioscori, came up in arms against Aphidna, and taking the city razed it to the ground, and that they brought back Helen, who was still a virgin, to Lacedaemon and along with her, to serve as a slave, Aethra, the mother of Theseus."

Lycophron references it in his riddling poem Alexandra, calling Castor and Polydeuces "Ἀκταίων λύκοι" "wolves of Acte" line 504.

The old Greek mythographers were careful to have it that Castor and Polydeuces didn't have to fight Theseus, the great hero of Athens who took part in the hunt for the boar of Calydon beside them.. And so Theseus is said to be away from Attica when the twins show up.

Plutarch in his Life of Theseus tells us that Castor and Polydeuces first come to Athens but are told by one Academus that Helen is not there but at Aphidna:

"[3] φράζει δὲ αὐτοῖς Ἀκάδημος ᾐσθημένος ᾧ δή τινι τρόπῳ τὴν ἐν Ἀφίδναις κρύψιν αὐτῆς. ὅθεν ἐκείνῳ τε τιμαὶ ζῶντι παρὰ τῶν Τυνδαριδῶν ἐγένοντο, καὶ πολλάκις ὕστερον εἰς τὴν Ἀττικὴν ἐμβαλόντες Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ πᾶσαν ὁμοῦ τὴν χώραν τέμνοντες, τῆς Ἀκαδημείας ἀπείχοντο διὰ τὸν Ἀκάδημον."

" [3] But Academus, who had learned in some way or other of her concealment at Aphidnae, told them about it. For this reason he was honored during his life by the Tyndaridae, and often afterwards when the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica and laid waste all the country round about, they spared the Academy, for the sake of Academus."

The Ἀκαδημία "Academy" was a grove of olive and plane trees in theory hallowed to the goddess Athena (Thucydides. ii:34) and walled about by Cimon (see Plutarch. Life of Cimon, xiii:7). But we suspect some connection to Castor and Polydeuces, and Plutarch has another tale about Academus which would seem to make him and Marathon a kind of heavenly twins of Attica:

"[4] ὁ δὲ Δικαίαρχος Ἐχεδήμου φησὶ καὶ Μαράθου συστρατευσάντων τότε τοῖς Τυνδαρίδαις ἐξ Ἀρκαδίας, ἀφ᾽ οὗ μὲν Ἐχεδημίαν προσαγορευθῆναι τὴν νῦν Ἀκαδήμειαν, ἀφ᾽ οὗ δὲ Μαραθῶνα τὸν δῆμον, ἐπιδόντος ἑαυτὸν ἑκουσίως κατά τι λόγιον σφαγιάσασθαι πρὸ τῆς παρατάξεως."

"[4] But Dicaearchus says that Echedemus and Marathus of Arcadia were in the army of the Tyndaridae at that time, from the first of whom the present Academy was named Echedemia, and from the other, the township of Marathon, since in accordance with some oracle he voluntarily gave himself to be sacrificed in front of the line of battle."

That these local twins were fire-bringers would seem to underlie the presence of an altar of Prometheus in the Academy. At the time of the four yearly Panathenaia (Παναθήναια) a torch race began at the altar of Prometheus in the Academy, and ended with the kindling of the sacred fire on the altar of Athena on the acropolis. That these were torch races were in honour of Prometheus (Paus. 1.30.2) I take to be a late rationalisation. The original fire-bringers were the twins, see [here].

It is markworthy that Plato came to set up his school called the Ἀκαδημία "Academy" about 390 - 380BCE on or near the site of the old holy grove, on a property he had inherited. It is one of those dreadful misdeededs of which the history of mankind is all too full, that the Roman Sulla behote the trees to be felled in 86BCE at the besetting of Athens (Life of Sulla 12.3):

"ἐπιλειπούσης δὲ τῆς ὕλης διὰ τὸ κόπτεσθαι πολλὰ τῶν ἔργων περικλώμενα τοῖς αὑτῶν βρίθεσι καὶ πυρπολεῖσθαι βαλλόμενα συνεχῶς ὑπὸ τῶν πολεμίων, ἐπεχείρησε τοῖς ἱεροῖς ἄλσεσι, καὶ τήν τε ᾿Ακαδήμειαν ἔκειρε δενδροφορωτάτην προαστείων οὖσαν καὶ τὸ Λύκειον. "

"And when timber began to fail, owing to the destruction of many of the works, which broke down of their own weight, and to the burning of those which were continually smitten by the enemy's fire-bolts, he laid hands upon the sacred groves, and ravaged the Academy, which was the most wooded of the city's suburbs, as well as the Lyceum."

What Plutarch writes about the time of the fall of Athens is interesting as it must be a point in time hateful to Athena and the Heavenly Twins (Life of Sulla 14.6):

"῾Ελεῖν δὲ τὰς ᾿Αθήνας αὐτός φησιν ἐν τοῖς ὑπομνήμασι Μαρτίαις καλάνδαις, ἥτις ἡμέρα μάλιστα συμπίπτει τῇ νουμηνίᾳ τοῦ ᾿Ανθεστηριῶνος μηνός, ἐν ᾧ κατὰ τύχην ὑπομνήματα πολλὰ τοῦ διὰ τὴν ἐπομβρίαν ὀλέθρου καὶ τῆς φθορᾶς ἐκείνης δρῶσιν, ὡς τότε καὶ περὶ τὸν χρόνον ἐκεῖνον μάλιστα τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ συμπεσόντος."

"He took Athens, as he says himself in his Memoirs, on the Calends of March, a day which corresponds very nearly with the first of the month Anthesterion. In this month, as it happens, the Athenians perform many rites commemorating the destruction and devastation caused by the flood, believing that the ancient deluge occurred at about this time."

And although the gods are slow, they are nevertheless sure, thus Pausanias 1.20.7:

[7] Σύλλου δὲ οὐκ ἀνιέντος ἐς Ἀθηναίους τοῦ θυμοῦ λαθόντες ἐκδιδράσκουσιν ἄνδρες ἐς Δελφοὺς: ἐρομένοις δέ σφισιν, εἰ καταλαμβάνοι τὸ χρεὼν ἤδη καὶ τὰς Ἀθήνας ἐρημωθῆναι, τούτοις ἔχρησεν ἡ Πυθία τὰ ἐς τὸν ἀσκὸν ἔχοντα. Σύλλᾳ δὲ ὕστερον τούτων ἐνέπεσεν ἡ νόσος, ᾗ καὶ τὸν Σύριον Φερεκύδην ἁλῶναι πυνθάνομαι. Σύλλᾳ δὲ ἔστι μὲν καὶ τὰ ἐς τοὺς πολλοὺς Ἀθηναίων ἀγριώτερα ἢ ὡς ἄνδρα εἰκὸς ἦν ἐργάσασθαι Ῥωμαῖον: ἀλλὰ γὰρ οὐ ταῦτα δὴ αἰτίαν γενέσθαι οἱ δοκῶ τῆς συμφορᾶς, Ἱκεσίου δὲ μήνιμα, ὅτι καταφυγόντα ἐς τὸ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερὸν ἀπέκτεινεν ἀποσπάσας Ἀριστίωνα.

[7] Sulla abated nothing of his wrath against the Athenians, and so a few effected an escape to Delphi, and asked if the time were now come when it was fated for Athens also to be made desolate, receiving from the Pythia the response about the wine skin. Afterwards Sulla was smitten with the disease which I learn attacked Pherecydes the Syrian. Although Sulla's treatment of the Athenian people was so savage as to be unworthy of a Roman, I do not think that this was the cause of his calamity, but rather the vengeance of the suppliants' Protector, for he had dragged Aristion from the sanctuary of Athena, where he had taken refuge, and killed him.

Pliny Natural History Book 7, chapitle 43:

unus hominum ad hoc aevi Felicis sibi cognomen adseruit L. Sulla, civili nempe sanguine ac patriae oppugnatione adoptatus. et quibus felicitatis inductus argumentis? quod proscribere tot milia civium ac trucidare potuisset? o prava interpretatio et futuro tempore infelix! non melioris sortis tunc fuere pereuntes, quorum miseremur hodie cum Sullam nemo non oderit? age, non exitus vitae eius omnium proscriptorum ab illo calamitate crudelior fuit erodente se ipso corpore et supplicia sibi gignente?

Lucius Sulla is the sole human being hitherto who has assumed the surname Fortunate, in fact achieving the title by civil bloodshed and by making war upon his country. And what tokens of good fortune were his motive? His success in exiling and slaughtering so many thousands of his fellow-countrymen? O what a false meaning to attach to the title! How doomed to misfortune in the future! Were not his victims more fortunate at the time when dying, whom we pity today when Sulla is universally hated? Come, was not the close of his life more cruel than the calamity of all the victims of his proscriptions, when his body ate itself away and bred its own torments?

[Pliny. Natural History, Volume II: Books 3-7. Awent by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 352. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942. lvs. 596 to 599]

Sulla's poor treatment of Athens is in marked contrast to what Castor and Polydeuces did at Athens after they had taken Aphidna:

"[33.1]ἐχομένων δ᾽ οὖν τῶν Ἀφιδνῶν καὶ τῶν ἐν ἄστει δεδιότων, ἔπεισε τὸν δῆμον ὁ Μενεσθεὺς δέχεσθαι τῇ πόλει καὶ φιλοφρονεῖσθαι τοὺς Τυνδαρίδας, ὡς μόνῳ Θησεῖ βίας ὑπάρξαντι πολεμοῦντας, τῶν δὲ ἄλλων εὐεργέτας ὄντας ἀνθρώπων καὶ σωτῆρας. ἐμαρτύρει δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ τὰ παρ᾽ ἐκείνων: οὐδὲν γὰρ ἠξίωσαν ἁπάντων κρατοῦντες ἀλλ᾽ ἢ μυηθῆναι, μηδὲν ἧττον Ἡρακλέους τῇ πόλει προσήκοντες. [2] καὶ τοῦτο οὖν ὑπῆρξεν αὐτοῖς, Ἀφίδνου ποιησαμένου παῖδας, ὡς Πύλιος Ἡρακλέα: καὶ τιμὰς ἰσοθέους ἔσχον, Ἄνακες προσαγορευθέντες, ἢ διὰ τὰς γενομένας ἀνοχὰς ἢ διὰ τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν καὶ κηδεμονίαν τοῦ μηδένα κακῶς παθεῖν στρατιᾶς τοσαύτης ἔνδον οὔσης: ἀνακῶς γὰρ ἔχειν τοὺς ἐπιμελομένους ἢ φυλάττοντας ὁτιοῦν: καὶ τοὺς βασιλεῖς ἴσως ἄνακτας διὰ τοῦτο καλοῦσιν. εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ λέγοντες διὰ τὴν τῶν ἀστέρων ἐπιφάνειαν Ἄνακας ὀνομάζεσθαι: τὸ γὰρ ἄνω τοὺς Ἀττικοὺς ἀνεκὰς ὀνομάζειν, καὶ ἀνέκαθεν τὸ ἄνωθεν. ”

[33.1]At any rate, Aphidnae was taken and the city of Athens was full of fear, but Menestheus persuaded its people to receive the Tyndaridae into the city and show them all manner of kindness, since they were waging war upon Theseus alone, who had committed the first act of violence, but were benefactors and saviours of the rest of mankind. And their behavior confirmed his assurances, for although they were masters of everything, they demanded only an initiation into the mysteries, since they were no less closely allied to the city than Heracles. [33.2] This privilege was accordingly granted them, after they had been adopted by Aphidnus, as Pylius had adopted Heracles. They also obtained honors like those paid to gods, and were addressed as ‘Anakes,’ either on account of their ‘stopping’ hostilities, or because of their ‘diligent’ care that no one should be injured, although there was such a large army within the city for the phrase ‘anakos echein’ is used of such as ‘care for’, or ‘guard anything’, and perhaps it is for this reason that kings are called ‘Anaktes.’ There are also those who say that the Tyndaridae were called ‘Anakes’ because of the appearance of their twin stars in the heavens, since the Athenians use ‘anekas’ and ‘anekathen’ for ‘ano’ and ‘anothen,’ signifying ‘above’ or ‘on high’.”

Ælian in his Various Histories bk. Iv, ch. 5 (awending Thomas Stanley (1665)):

“ καὶ Μενεσθεὺς δὲ ὁ Πετεῶο περὶ τοὺς Τυνδαρίδας οὐκ ἐγένετο ἀχάριστος. ἐκβαλόντες γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι τοὺς Θησέως υἱοὺς καὶ τὴν μητέρα τὴν Θησέως Αἶθραν αἰχμάλωτον λαβόντες ἔδωκαν τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ Μενεσθεῖ. διὰ ταῦτα πρῶτος ὁ Μενεσθεὺς Ἄνακτάς τε καὶ Σωτῆρας ὠνόμασε.”

“And Menestheus son of Peteus was not ungrateful to the Tyndaridæ : for they having cast out the sons of Theseus, and taken Æthra the Mother of Theseus Prisoner, they bestowed the Kingdome upon Menestheus ; for which reason Menestheus named them Kings and Preservers.”

In being linked to the Anakes and the Mysteries of Eleusis, Castor and Polydeuces are being tied up to the Cabeiroi of Samothrace. The "sons/children of Anak" or "Anakims" of the Bible are seemingly a mistake for the Anakes.

Callias, the torch-bearer (Καλλίας ὁ δᾳδοῦχος) at Eleusis thought there should be peace with the Spartans as Heracles and Castor and Polydeuces were all initiates of Eleusis. thus Xenophon's Hellenica:

[5] ὁρῶ γὰρ οὐκ ἄλλα μὲν ὑμῖν, ἄλλα δὲ ἡμῖν δοκοῦντα, ἀλλ᾽ ὑμᾶς τε ἀχθομένους καὶ ἡμᾶς τῇ Πλαταιῶν καὶ Θεσπιῶν ἀναιρέσει. πῶς οὖν οὐκ εἰκὸς τὰ αὐτὰ γιγνώσκοντας φίλους μᾶλλον ἀλλήλοις ἢ πολεμίους εἶναι; καὶ σωφρόνων μὲν δήπου ἐστὶ μηδὲ εἰ μικρὰ τὰ διαφέροντα εἴη πόλεμον ἀναιρεῖσθαι: εἰ δὲ δὴ καὶ ὁμογνωμονοῖμεν, οὐκ ἂν πάνυ τῶν θαυμαστῶν εἴη μὴ εἰρήνην ποιεῖσθαι;
[6] δίκαιον μὲν οὖν ἦν μηδὲ ὅπλα ἐπιφέρειν ἀλλήλοις ἡμᾶς, ἐπεὶ λέγεται μὲν Τριπτόλεμος ὁ ἡμέτερος πρόγονος τὰ Δήμητρος καὶ Κόρης ἄρρητα ἱερὰ πρώτοις ξένοις δεῖξαι Ἡρακλεῖ τε τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἀρχηγέτῃ καὶ Διοσκούροιν τοῖν ὑμετέροιν πολίταιν, καὶ τοῦ Δήμητρος δὲ καρποῦ εἰς πρώτην τὴν Πελοπόννησον σπέρμα δωρήσασθαι. πῶς οὖν δίκαιον ἢ ὑμᾶς, παρ᾽ ὧν ἐλάβετε σπέρματα, τὸν τούτων ποτὲ καρπὸν ἐλθεῖν δῃώσοντας, ἡμᾶς τε, οἷς ἐδώκαμεν, μὴ οὐχὶ βούλεσθαι ὡς πλείστην τούτοις ἀφθονίαν τροφῆς γενέσθαι; εἰ δὲ ἄρα ἐκ θεῶν πεπρωμένον ἐστὶ πολέμους ἐν ἀνθρώποις γίγνεσθαι, ἡμᾶς δὲ χρὴ ἄρχεσθαι μὲν αὐτοῦ ὡς σχολαίτατα, ὅταν δὲ γένηται, καταλύεσθαι ᾗ δυνατὸν τάχιστα.

[5] I see that you do not think one way and we another, but that you as well as we are distressed over the destruction of Plataea and Thespiae. How, then, is it not fitting that men who hold the same views should be friends of one another rather than enemies? Again, it is certainly the part of wise men not to undertake war even if they should have differences, if they be slight; but if, in fact, we should actually find ourselves in complete agreement, should we not be astounding fools not to make peace?
[6] The right course, indeed, would have been for us not to take up arms against one another in the beginning, since the tradition is that the first strangers to whom Triptolemus, our ancestor, revealed the mystic rites of Demeter and Core were Heracles, your state's founder, and the Dioscuri, your citizens; and, further, that it was upon Peloponnesus that he first bestowed the seed of Demeter's fruit. How, then, can it be right, either that you should ever come to destroy the fruit of those very men from whom you received the seed, or that we should not desire those very men, to whom we gave the seed, to obtain the greatest possible abundance of food? But if it is indeed ordered of the gods that wars should come among men, then we ought to begin war as tardily as we can, and, when it has come, to bring it to an end as speedily as possible.”

Scholiast on Homer, Iliad 3. 242 (i 153 Dindorf) tells us furthermore that Castor was wounded in the right thigh by one Aphidnus at the time Aphidna was sacked.

Ἑλένη ἁρπασθεῖσα ὑπὸ Ἀλεξάνδρου, ἀγνοοῦσα τὸ συμβεβηκὸς μεταξὺ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς Διοσκούροις κακόν, ὑπολαμβάνει δι᾿ αἰσχύνης αὐτῆς μὴ πεπορεῦσθαι τούτους εἰς Ἴλιον, ἐπειδὴ προτέρως ὑπὸ Θησέως ἡρπάσθη, καθὼς προείρηται. διὰ γὰρ τὴν τότε γενομένην ἁρπαγὴν Ἄφιδνα πόλις Ἀττικῆς πορθεῖται καὶ τιτρώσκεται Κάστωρ ὑπὸ Ἀφίδνου τοῦ τότε βασιλέως κατὰ τὸν δεξιὸν μηρόν. οἱ δὲ Διόσκουροι Θησέως μὴ τυχόντες λαφυραγωγοῦσι τὰς Ἀθήνας [A: Ἀφίδνας D]. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς Πολεμωνίοις (?) ἢ τοῖς Κυκλικοῖς καὶ ἀπὸ μέρους παρὰ Ἀλκμᾶνι τῷ λυρικῷ.

Helen, carried off by Paris, has no knowledge of the disaster that has overtaken her brothers the Dioscuri in the meantime, but imagines that they have not come to Troy because they are ashamed of her: she had previously been carried off by Theseus, as has been said already. On account of that incident Aphidna, a city in Attica, was sacked and Castor was wounded in the right thigh by Aphidnus, king at that time. The Dioscuri having failed to get hold of Theseus plundered Athens. The story is in (Polemon?) or the cyclic poems and in part in the lyric poet Alcman.

[Anacreon. Greek Lyric, Volume II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman. Edited and translated by David A. Campbell. Loeb Classical Library 143. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Alcman, lvs. 412 to 413]

Muddling up of this wounding with Castor's slaying seems to lie behind Hyginus' odd claim in his Astronomica 2.22 that Castor was killed at Aphidna.

Where is Aphidna? Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854):

"Leake, following Finlay, places Aphidna between Deceleia and Rhamnus, in the upper valley of the river Marathon, and supposes it to have stood on a strong and conspicuous height named Kotróni, upon which are considerable remains indicating the site of a fortified demus. Its distance from Athens is about 16 miles, half as much from Marathon, and something less from Deceleia. (Leake, Demi of Attica, p. 19, seq.)"

For the help the folk of Deceleia were said to have given Castor and Polydeuces when they came to get their sister back, the Spartans looked upon them as free folk ever afterwards when they had dealings with Athens.

The Rescuers of Helen

Now this is all old myth given a local and historical dressing. And we are lucky that Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, put the deeds of the Bohemian monk Hieronymus Pragensis in Lithuania into chapitle 26 of his De Europa (1458):

“Profectus introrsus aliam gentem reperit, quae Solem colebat, et malleum ferreum rarae magnitudinis singulari cultu uenerabatur. Interrogati sacerdotes, quid ea sibi ueneratio uellet, responderunt olim pluribus mensibus non fuisse uisum Solem, quem rex potentissimus captum reclusisset in carcere munitissimae turris. Signa zodiaci deinde opem tulisse Soli, ingentique malleo perfregisse turrim, Solemque liberatum hominibus restituisse. Dignum itaque ueneratu instrumentum esse, quo mortales lucem recepissent.”

“He went further inward finding another folk, who worshipped the Sun, and an iron hammer of uncommon size with a markworthy worship. He asked the priests, what it was they themselves were worshipping, they answered: Once the sun had not been seen for many months, for that a mighty king had taken her and locked her up in the prison of a most strong tower. The "signs of the zodiac" had then brought help to the Sun, broken up the tower with the great hammer, freed the Sun and brought her back to men. And so the tool by which men had got back daylight was worthy of worship.”

Nijolė Laurinkienė of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, however writes "The motif of the Sun’s capture has not been found in Lithuanian folklore."[here] but he does nevertheless beckon toward tales in the Kalevala, and in the folklore of Karelia where it is. Nevertheless it is even this myth which underlies Helen's kidnapping by Theseus and her freeing by her brothers. And with Agamemnon and Menelaus in her brother's stead the tale is told again wherein Paris plays Theseus' part and Aphidna has been swapped for Ilium or Troy! Agamemnon and Menelaus come into the tale for that the early shape of things has been lost.

In the Ṛgvedaḥ the "Heavenly Twins" are mostly the sons of Dyaus "divo napātā" (1.184.1), and they are often found together with Sūryā (सूर्या) (maybe also called Ūrjānī (1.119.2)) the daughter of the sun, "sūryasya duhitā" (4.43.2) "maiden ... daughter of the sun" "yoṣā ... sūro duhitā" (7.69.4) who is sometimes even said to be their wife (see Ṛgvedaḥ 7. 69. 3-4; 8. 22. 1; 4. 43. 6; 1.119.5 cf. 1.116.17; 1. 184. 3 although 10.85 has her wed Soma). Now the twins do have a sister, indeed two sisters, and they are: Uṣā́ḥ ( उषाः.) "Dawn" (7.67.2 "ketur uṣasaḥ ... divo duhitur") and Rā́triḥ (रात्रिः) "Night" (10.127.8 "duhitardivaḥ"). To begin with the daughter of the sun is not linked to Uṣā́ḥ "Dawn" but, in time she is, and when this step is taken then nothing hinders the twins being made into sons of the sun as we see in Yāska's Nirukta 12.10. But this is a bad mistake and it is the beginning of a whole load of problems whereby the mythologists are hard put to keep up the older mythic pattern. The old pattern being that the daughter of the sun was their wife who they won in a race. The tale is beckoned to in 1.116.17:

ā vāṃ rathaṃ duhitā sūryasya kārṣmevātiṣṭhadarvatājayantī |
viśve devā anvamanyata hṛdbhiḥ samu śriyā nāsatyā sacethe ||

The Daughter of the Sun your car ascended, first reaching as it were the goal with coursers.
All Deities within their hearts assented, and ye, Nāsatyas, are close linked with glory.

J. Muir Original Sanskrit Texts (1870) vol. 5 lf.236:

"Sāyaṇa remarks as follows: Savitā sva-duhitaraṁ Suryākhyām Somāya rājne praddātum aichhat | tāṁ Suryām sarve devāḥ varayāmāsuḥ| te anyonyam uchur "Ādityam avadhiṁ kṛitvā ājiṁ dhāvāma yo asmākam ujjeshyati tasya iyam bhavishyati" iti |tatra Aśvināv udajayatām |sā cha Sūryā jitavatas tayoḥ ratham āruroha| “atra Prajāpatir vai somāya rājne duhitaram prāyachhad" ityādikam brāhmaṇam anusandheyam |"

" S'avitṛi had destined his daughter Sūryā to be the wife of king Soma. But all the gods were anxious to obtain her hand, and resolved that the victor in a race which they agreed to run, with the sun for their goal, should get her. She was accordingly won by the Aśvins, and ascended their chariot."

See also Aitareya-Brahmana 4.7 where the myth is said to be the origin of the Aśvina-śastra.

There are whispers of something like this about Castor and Polydeuces hence their links to stadia everywhere although there are no myths that have come down to us among the Greeks as to why this should be. Then there is the horse offering and oath sworn by Helen's overmany wooers (see Paus. 3.20.9) and this at the suggestion of Odysseus for Tyndareus' help with Odysseus' wooing of Tyndareus' brother's daughter, Penelope. The Penelope whom Odysseus won in a race (see Paus. 3.12.4). Now what was once truly said of Helen has thus been shifted onto Penelope. And although we should leave things here, yet the name of Anactes, that is the Greek Ἄνακες, "Kings", bestowed upon the Dioscuri, and those races won by Pelops (for a king's daughter (Hippodameia "horse-tamer") and her father's kingdom of Pisaia) and by Epeios (see Paus. GtG. 5.1.4-5 to see which of three brothers should wholly take over their father's kingdom of Elis) still beckon to more.

Needless to say Helen is for Sūryā. And notwithstanding that it comes from a "late and supremely disreputable source" (West) we should still believe Ptolemy Hephæstion above all others when he tells us (albeit as summed up by Photius):

" Ὡς Ἡλίου θυγάτηρ καὶ Λήδας Ἑλένη, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ Λεοντή."

"That Helen was the daughter of Helios and Leda, and that she was called Leonte."

For either by sheer luck, or from some higher knowledge, he has hit on the truth.

Folklore I think always knew it. Thus one of those thermal springs brooked as baths, such as we might find at our Bath, or on mainland Europe at Aachen and Bourbonne-les-Bains, and always linked to sun-gods (Borvo, Grannus, both evened with the Roman Apollo) or their daughters (Sulis) was in Greece linked to Helen. Thus Pausanias Guide ... bk. 2, 2.3:

" Κεγχρεῶν δὲ ἀπαντικρὺ τὸ Ἑλένης ἐστὶ λουτρόν: ὕδωρ ἐς θάλασσαν ἐκ πέτρας ῥεῖ πολὺ καὶ ἁλμυρὸν ὕδατι ὅμοιον ἀρχομένῳ θερμαίνεσθαι."

"Right opposite Cenchreae is Helen's Bath. It is a large stream of salt, tepid water, flowing from a rock into the sea."

And the wort that we have long called in England Horse-heal, or Elecampane, this last from the Latin "Elena Campana", is the Greek Ἑλένιον (Helenium) which is said to have grown from Helen of Troy's tears, and with its bright yellow blooms is obviously a solar plant.

Above: An Horse-heal bloom by H. Zell - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10477441

The true etymology of Helen's name leads us to the same thing, thus M. L. West Indo-European Poetry and Myth (2007) ch. 5. lf.231:

" In two early Laconian dedications to Helen her name is spelled with a digamma, Ϝελήνη.115 [footnote 115: "SEG 457 (c.675–650), 458 (sixth century). The digamma is also attested by grammarians: ..."] This rules out attempts to connect it with σέλας ‘brightness’, σελήνη ‘moon’, or the Indian Saranyu, the Aśvins’ mare-mother ... The older form of the name must have been *Swelénā. ..."

So akin to Old English swǣlan “to burn” (they still "swale" furze on Dartmoor), from Proto-Germanic *swelaną (“to smoulder, burn slowly, create a burningly cold sensation”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to shine, warm, smoulder, burn”).

And so to begin with, before she got muddled up with the Dawn and became the sister of Castor and Polydeuces, she must have been their shared wife! Agamemnon and Menelaus later standing in for Castor and Polydeuces when Helen needs rescuing again, to get over the old myth pattern whereby the sun's daughter has two husbands. Thus Agamemnon is said to have wooed Helen on Menelaus' behalf.

And once Helen becomes their sister, the rôle of wife to Castor and Polydeuces is taken up by the αἱ Λευκιππίδες (the Leukippides) Hilæira and Phœbe who are themselves only a doubling up of the old Sūryā. Thus they are said to be "daughters of Apollo" in the Cypria (see Paus. 3.16.1) notwithstanding that they are also called daughters of Leucippus "White Horse"! The business with Idas and Lynceus (the Dioscuri of Messenia), although sundrily told and even mixed up with the tale of the death of Castor and Polydeuces, can nevertheless be seen at root to be no more than as a misunderstanding of the old mythic race between rivals for the hand of the sun's daughter (=Hilæira/Phœbe). A race the twins won. That this has nothing to do with their deaths can be seen from the mythography whereby Castor and Polydeuces have sons by Hilæira and Phœbe, either Anaxis and Mnasinous (Paus. 2.22.5) or Mnesileus and Anogon (Apollodorus 3.11.2). But we should think these are only other names for the Dioscuri themselves. Ṛgvedaḥ 1.117.9:

purū varpāṃsy aśvinā dadhānā

O Aśvins, wearing many forms at pleasure,...

Now a shrine (ἱερόν) of Helen Dendritis (Helen of the Trees, Έλένα Δενδρῖτις) on Rhodes is marked by Pausanias in his Guide to Greece 3. 19.10, but the tale told there of her being driven to hang herself on a tree hides more than it shows. It is truly akin to the worship of "hanged (Ἀπαγχομένην) Artemis" at Condylea in Arcadia (8.23.6-7). And it is worth calling to mind here that Hyginus in his Fabulæ 79 has Helen kidnapped from Sparta by Theseus while offering to Diana, that is to Artemis. And when Castor and Polydeuces made off with Phœbe and Hilæira, although Phœbe is said to be a priestess of Minerva, that is Athena, Hilæira is a priestess of Diana (Fabulæ 80). And Pausanias tells us that at the shrine (ἱερόν) of Phœbe and Hilæira at Sparta (3.161.1) the priestesses have the same name as the goddesses we begin to see that, if we put it all together, that Helen/Phœbe/Hilæira are all one with Artemis and Athena who we know already share much and may blend into eachother at times (see [here]), and who both must often stand in the stead of the old sun's daughter. That these two κόρᾱ are missing the third κόρη, namely Persephone, stands to reason, and we at last understand all these three κόραι as all one, and may all stand in for the sun's daughter although other mythic patterns from elsewhere have undoutedly had their influence. But at heart we see that Persephone's kidnapping by Pluto is one with Helen's kidnapping by Theseus or Paris and it is all the same as the theft of the sun that the pagan priests of Lithuania told Hieronymus Pragensis all about. And as we have seen Demeter, Persephone's mother, is also the sun and the "Mother of the Gods" but maybe in a more essential way than her daughter is. But the two are still one. And the tree? Well there must have been an old belief of the sun and moon sitting in trees. Thus Kalevala runo 49 (awend. J. M. Crawford):

Ilmarinen, little heeding,
Ceases not to ply his hammer,
Sun and Moon the artist forges,
Wings the Moon of Magic upward,
Hurls it to the pine-tree branches;
...
Then the silver Sun he stations
In an elm-tree on the mountain.

And the sun being back in her tree we should take as a sign of her triumphant return in the spring from the under to the upper world again. And it is Castor and Polydeuces who do this. Thus they are often shown either side of a goddess (for Helen?).

Healers?

Horace in his Epodes gives us Castor and Polydeuces as healers, thus Ep. 17.41 to 43:

infamis Helenae Castor offensus vice
fraterque magni Castoris, victi prece,
adempta vati reddidere lumina:

Though they were incensed at the libelling of Helen, Castor and his mighty brother were won over by prayer and restored to the bard the eyesight they had taken from him.

[Horace. Odes and Epodes. Edited and translated by Niall Rudd. Loeb Classical Library 33. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.lvs. 314 to 315]

In the Ṛgvedaḥ we find that the Aśvināv , among all their other mights, are great and wonderful healers. bhiṣajā (as at 1.157.6 ) “leeches” is a common byname and dasrā "wonder-workers" most likely belongs here too in the main, thus 8.86.1:

ubhā hi dasrā bhiṣajā

“Since both of you are wondrous healers”

It is odd then that Castor and Polydeuces don't seem to be more often thought of in this way, seeing as we find in the Greek-speaking area the origins of the cult of saints Cosmas and Damianus who are shown as wonderful healers, and seem to have taken over from the Dioscuri in more than one place But for the Classical Greeks all healing was the work of Apollo and Artemis or Apollo's son Asclepius. Though, as we have marked before now, Apollo and Artemis owe something to the Heavenly Twins for their origins, and Leto and Leda is the same name. Although Asclepius is most often understood as the son of Apollo and Coronis and to have begun his mythic life in Thessaly as a student of Cheiron, in Messenia they said he was the son of Arsinoe the sister of Leucippus who was the father of Phoebe and Hilaira the wives of the Dioscuri.
Thus 3.26.4:

" Twenty stades from Pephnus is Leuctra. I do not know why the city has this name. If indeed it is derived from Leucippus the son of Perieres, as the Messenians say, it is for this reason, I think, that the inhabitants honor Asclepius most of the gods, supposing him to be the son of Arsinoe the daughter of Leucippus. There is a stone statue of Asclepius, and of Ino in another place."

Furthermore the sons of Asclepius, Machaon (Μᾰχάων) and Podaleirius (Ποδαλείριος), seem to be a reflexion of the Heavenly Twins in their healing mode. At Gerenia in Messenia Machaon had a cult, his dead body being brought back and buried there by Nestor, thus 3.26.9:

Here in Gerenia is a tomb of Machaon, son of Asclepius, and a holy sanctuary. In his temple men may find cures for diseases. They call the holy spot Rhodos; there is a standing bronze statue of Machaon, with a crown on his head which the Messenians in the local speech call kiphos. The author of the epic The Little Iliad says that Machaon was killed by Eurypylus, son of Telephus.

Whilst Podaleirius on the other hand seems to have been remembered at Syrnus in Caria (3.26.11). Strabo (Geography 6.3.9) on the other hand, says there was , a hero-shrine of Podalirius, and another of Calchas, at Daunia in Italy, on a hill known as Drium. This may well be in the neighbourhood of Monte Gargano and go a long way to outfolding the origins of the cult of St Michael that grew up there.

At Pharae (Φαραί) in Messenia (see Paus. 4.3.2), now Kalamata (Καλαμάτα), there was a temple of the "sons of Machaon" by Anticleia the daughter of Diocles (4.30.3), namely Gorgasus and Nicomachus, built by Glaucus the "Dorian" king of Messenia (4.3.10):

"διαμεμένηκε δὲ αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐς τόδε ἔτι νοσήματά τε καὶ τοὺς πεπηρωμένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἰᾶσθαι: καί σφισιν ἀντὶ τούτων θυσίας ἐς τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ ἀναθήματα ἄγουσιν."

"The power of healing diseases and curing the maimed has remained with them to this day, and in return for this, sacrifices and votive offerings are brought to their sanctuary."

Phoebe and Hilaira

As we have already marked Castor and Polydeuces are said to have wed the Leucippides (Λευκιππίδες), Phoebe (Φοίβη) and Hilaeira (Ἱλάειρα)and to have had children by them, thus Apollodorus:

[2] τῶν δὲ ἐκ Λήδας γενομένων παίδων Κάστωρ μὲν ἤσκει τὰ κατὰ πόλεμον, Πολυδεύκης δὲ πυγμήν, καὶ διὰ τὴν ἀνδρείαν ἐκλήθησαν ἀμφότεροι Διόσκουροι. βουλόμενοι δὲ γῆμαι τὰς Λευκίππου θυγατέρας ἐκ Μεσσήνης ἁρπάσαντες ἔγημαν: καὶ γίνεται μὲν Πολυδεύκους καὶ Φοίβης Μνησίλεως, Κάστορος δὲ καὶ Ἱλαείρας Ἀνώγων.

[2] Of the sons born to Leda Castor practised the art of war, and Pollux the art of boxing; and on account of their manliness they were both called Dioscuri. And wishing to marry the daughters of Leucippus, they carried them off from Messene and wedded them; and Pollux had Mnesileus by Phoebe, and Castor had Anogon by Hilaira.

From Pausanias th'ilk 2.22.5 we know that their children were known by other names at Argos: :

[5] προελθόντι δὲ οὐ πολὺ τάφος ἐστὶν Ἄργου Διὸς εἶναι δοκοῦντος καὶ τῆς Φορωνέως Νιόβης: μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα Διοσκούρων ναός. ἀγάλματα δὲ αὐτοί τε καὶ οἱ παῖδές εἰσιν Ἄναξις καὶ Μνασίνους, σὺν δέ σφισιν αἱ μητέρες Ἱλάειρα καὶ Φοίβη, τέχνη μὲν Διποίνου καὶ Σκύλλιδος, ξύλου δὲ ἐβένου: τοῖς δ᾽ ἵπποις τὰ μὲν πολλὰ ἐβένου καὶ τούτοις, ὀλίγα δὲ καὶ ἐλέφαντος πεποίηται.

[5] Going on a little further you see the grave of Argus, reputed to be the son of Zeus and Niobe, daughter of Phoroneus. After these comes a temple of the Dioscuri. The images represent the Dioscuri themselves and their sons, Anaxis and Mnasinous, and with them are their mothers, Hilaeira and Phoebe. They are of ebony wood, and were made by Dipoenus and Scyllis. The horses, too, are mostly of ebony, but there is a little ivory also in their construction.

Phoebe and Hilaira hark back to Sūryā the daughter of the Sun in the Ṛgvedaḥ who rides in the chariot of the Aśvinā, and is understood as their wife. It is true that the Greeks are known to have brooked both Phoebe and Hilaira as names for the moon goddess, thus Phoebe is, or should be, a well known byname of Artemis, and Plutarch in his On the Face in the Moon 2 (920c) quotes a line of Empedocles:

“ἥλιος ὀξυβελὴς ἡ δ᾿ αὖ ἱλάειρα σελήνη,”
“The sun keen-shafted and the gentle (ἱλάειρα - hilaira) moon,”

But with Sūryā the daughter of the Sun in mind, we suspect the moon has replaced the sun in all this. Pausanias 3.16.1:

ὁ δὲ ποιήσας τὰ ἔπη τὰ Κύπρια θυγατέρας αὐτὰς Ἀπόλλωνός φησιν εἶναι.

The author of the poem Cypria calls them daughters of Apollo.

Now their father's name of Leucippus (Λεύκιππος) means "white horse" in Greek, and we straightaway think of Pindar's first Pythian Ode, line 66, where Castor and Polydeuces are spoken of thus- λευκοπώλων Τυνδαριδᾶν, "to the sons of Tyndareus of the white horses". From which we may begin to see that, whatever Phoebe and Hilaira are, they are indeed the female "other halves" of Castor and Polydeuces. Hyginus (Fabulæ 80) gives us the fascinating detail that Phoebe was a priestess of Minerva, that is of Athena, and Hilaeira a priestess of Diana, that is, of Artemis. But these are the same goddesses that Diodorus Siculus (Library 22.9.5) matches to the foretold "white maidens" (τὰς λευκὰς κόρας) who, with "the god" (τὸν θεὸν = Apollo) are to ward the oracle of Delphi from the Gauls. Others might well think that these "white maidens" are Hyperoxe and Laodice (ὁ Ὑπερόχην τε καὶ Λαοδίκην·) which are given by Herodotus (Hist. 4.33.3) as the names of two Hyperborean maidens buried at Delphi in what I take to be something of a hero-shrine. And their essential relationship to the Heavenly Twins may be seen in the fact that with male versions of their names Hyperoxus and Laodocus (ὁ Ὑπέροχος καὶ ὁ Λαόδοκός) they are said to have helped the Greeks overcome the Gauls at Delphi (Paus. 10.23.2) in a way that would be a classic manifestation of the twin gods!

Idas and Lynceus

"Idas and Lynkeus ... apparently bear the words wood and lynx in their names" (Burkert Greek Religion (1985) IV. 5.3 lf. 212). Idas and Lynceus at first sight seem to be the aṃśa-avatārau themselves of the Heavenly Twins in Messenia. They were the children of Aphareus and Arene. Arene the daughter of Oebalus the king of Laconia and thus a sister of Tyndareus . Aphareus was the son of Perieres (Περιήρης) and Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus (Paus. 4.2.4-5). And Perieres was the son of Aeolus (Paus. 4.2.3). Phoebe and Hilaira are mostly thought of as the daughters of Aphareus's brother, and by all accounts Idas and Lynceus were meant to be their husbands before Castor and Polydeuces made off with them. The often met with tale is that this bride stealing led straightaway to the fight in which Castor and they were killed. But when told like this, it is an obvious mistake, as Castor and Polydeuces are well known to have had children by Phoebe and Hilaira. Lycophron's Alexandra line 549 is almost alone helpful among all the old sources in setting the deaths of Castor, Idas and Lynceus in the right place in the story.

ἀλφῆς τῆς ἀεδνώτου δίκην.
in vengeance for the traffic without gifts of wooing.

[Callimachus, Lycophron, Aratus. Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophron: Alexandra. Aratus: Phaenomena. Translated by A. W. Mair, G. R. Mair. Loeb Classical Library 129. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921. lvs. 366 to 367]

Together with the old scholion of this, misplaced under line 547:

ὀνειδισθέντες γὰρ οἱ Διόσκουροι, ὑπὸ τῶν Ἀφαρέως παίδων, ὡς μὴ ἐδεδώκεσαν ἕδνα ὑπὲρ τῶν Λευκίππου θυγατέρων, ἤλασαν τὰς Ἀφαρέως βοῦς δόντες τῷ Λευκίππῳ· περὶ ὧν ὁ πόλεμος.

For the Dioscuri, being upbraided by the children of Aphareus, that they had not given the bride-price for the daughters of Leucippus, drive off the kine of Aphareus which are to be given to Leucippus. About these is the fight.

This brings it out that it was long after the Leucippides had actually been taken, that Idas and Lynceus at a feast twit Castor and Polydeuces (their maternal cousins) for the lack of ἕδνα or "bride-price" paid for their wives, who are Idas and Lynceus' paternal cousins. Castor and Polydeuces, nothing taken aback, then go off straightaway and cheekily "lift" (ἤλασαν) the cattle of Aphareus to pay the "bride-price". As Aphareus is Idas and Lynceus's father, this wasn't going to end well, and indeed it doesn't, the well known fight then taking place. And this must happen after Castor and Polydeuces had welcomed Paris to Sparta (see Cypria summary in Χρηστομάθεια), and seemingly at the same time as Helen's swift leading off by Paris (or shortly thereafter) so she didn't know that her brothers had come to blows with Idas and Lynceus and what had happened to them after that (see Iliad 3:234-244).

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Textgeschichte der griechische Bukoliker (1906) writing of the lost Cypria (lvs. 189 - 190):

Der Inhalt war folgender. Als Alexandros an die lakonische Küste kam, nahm ihn Helene in Las auf und gab ihm ein Festmahl, bei dem ihr die asiatische Pracht des fremden Prinzen gewaltig in die Augen stach. Die Honneurs machten ihre beiden Brüder, und deren Vettern, die Apharetiden Idas und Lynkeus, waren auch geladen. Beim Weine machten diese sich über die Dioskuren lustig, weil sie sich ihre Frauen, die Leukippiden, Töchter des Apollon, ohne Brautschatz zu zahlen erworben hätten, also durch Raub. Wir sehen, der asiatische oder kyprische Dichter macht Gebrauch von seiner Kenntnis der spartanischen, besser hellenischen Ärmlichkeit gegenüber der asiatischen Pracht, und von seiner Kenntnis der spartiatischen Raubehe, die mindestens der Form nach noch bestand. Der Zank führt dazu, dafs die Dioskuren drohen, dann würdeu sie sich die zum Brautkaufe nötigen Rinder aus Messenien holen, der Heimat der Aphareussöhne. Wie sie die Drohung ausgeführt haben, ward als Episode erzählt: die Abwesenheit der Brüder gab dem Paris zu seinem Anschlage auf Helene Raum. Als die Dioskuren mit den gestohlenen Rindern schon beinahe nach Hause zurückgekehrt waren, entdeckte sie Lynkeus, vom Taygetos niederschauend, in einer Eiche versteckt. Die Apharetiden stürmten vor, ereilten sie an dem Grabe des Aphareus. Idas stach den Kastor nieder, aber den Polydeukes konnten sie mit den Steinen, die sie von ihres Vaters Grab fortrissen, nicht bezwingen, sondern er erschlug den Lynkeus, und den Idas tötete der Blitz des Zeus, der für seinen Sohn eintrat; den Schlufs bildete die Einsetzung der Heteremerie. Wir dürfen den letzten Teil dem zehnten nemeischen Gedichte Pindars nacherzählen.

The content was as follows. When Alexander came to the Laconic coast, Helen took him to Las and gave him a feast, at which the Asian splendour of the foreign prince struck her tremendously in the eyes. The honoured hosts were her two brothers, and their cousins, the Apharetids Idas and Lynkeus, were also invited. Through the wine, they made fun of the Dioscuri because they had acquired their wives, the Leucippides, daughters of Apollo, without paying a bride-price, that is, through robbery. We see that the Asiatic or Cypriot poet makes use of his knowledge of the Spartan, or rather Hellenic, poorness in relation to the Asiatic splendour, and of his knowledge of the Spartan "Raubehe"(bride stealing), which at least in form still existed. The quarrel leads to the Dioscuri threatening that they would fetch the cattle they need to buy the bride from Messenia, the home of the Aphareus sons. How they carried out the threat was told as an episode: the absence of the brothers gave Paris room to attack Helen. When the Dioscuri had almost returned home with the stolen cattle, they were discovered by Lynkeus, looking down from the Taygetus, hiding in an oak tree. The Apharetids stormed forward and overtook them at Aphareus' tomb. Idas stabbed Castor, but they could not defeat Polydeukes with the stones that they tore from their father's grave. Instead, he slew Lynkeus, and Idas was killed by the lightning bolt of Zeus, who stood up for his son; the conclusion was the establishment of heteremerism. We may retell the last part from Pindar's tenth Nemean ode.

It would be important to the timeline of events that the fight with Idas and Lynceus should provide a distraction for Castor and Polydeuces so that Paris can steal their sister.

The fight itself is maybe best set out by Pindar in his Tenth Nemean Ode, which as von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff says, is likely to be based on the lost Cypria (awend. Diane Arnson Svarlien):

60τὸν γὰρ Ἴδας ἀμφὶ βουσίν πως χολωθεὶς ἔτρωσεν χαλκέας λόγχας ἀκμᾷ.
ἀπὸ Ταϋγέτου πεδαυγάζων ἴδεν Λυγκεὺς δρυὸς ἐν στελέχει
ἡμένους. κείνου γὰρ ἐπιχθονίων πάντων γένετ᾽ ὀξύτατον
ὄμμα. λαιψηροῖς δὲ πόδεσσιν ἄφαρ
[120] ἐξικέσθαν, καὶ μέγα ἔργον ἐμήσαντ᾽ ὠκέως,
65καὶ πάθον δεινὸν παλάμαις Ἀφαρητίδαι Διός. αὐτίκα γὰρ
ἦλθε Λήδας παῖς διώκων: τοὶ δ᾽ ἔναντα στάθεν τύμβῳ σχεδὸν πατρωΐῳ:
ἔνθεν ἁρπάξαντες ἄγαλμ᾽ Ἀΐδα, ξεστὸν πέτρον,
ἔμβαλον στέρνῳ Πολυδεύκεος: ἀλλ᾽ οὔ νιν φλάσαν,
[130] οὐδ᾽ ἀνέχασσαν: ἐφορμαθεὶς δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἄκοντι θοῷ
70ἤλασε Λυγκέος ἐν πλευραῖσι χαλκόν.
Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ Ἴδᾳ πυρφόρον πλᾶξε ψολόεντα κεραυνόν:
ἅμα δ᾽ ἐκαίοντ᾽ ἔρημοι. χαλεπὰ δ᾽ ἔρις ἀνθρώποις ὁμιλεῖν κρεσσόνων.
ταχέως δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀδελφεοῦ βίαν πάλιν χώρησεν ὁ Τυνδαρίδας,
[140] καί νιν οὔπω τεθναότ᾽, ἄσθματι δὲ φρίσσοντα πνοὰς ἔκιχεν.
75θερμὰ δὴ τέγγων δάκρυα στοναχαῖς
ὄρθιον φώνασε: ‘πάτερ Κρονίων, τίς δὴ λύσις
ἔσσεται πενθέων; καὶ ἐμοὶ θάνατον σὺν τῷδ᾽ ἐπίτειλον, ἄναξ.
οἴχεται τιμὰ φίλων τατωμένῳ φωτί: παῦροι δ᾽ ἐν πόνῳ πιστοὶ βροτῶν
καμάτου μεταλαμβάνειν.’ ὣς ἔννεπε: Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀντίος ἤλυθέ οἱ
80 [150] καὶ τόδ᾽ ἐξαύδασ᾽ ἔπος: ‘ἐσσί μοι υἱός: τόνδε δ᾽ ἔπειτα πόσις
σπέρμα θνατὸν ματρὶ τεᾷ πελάσαις
στάξεν ἥρως. ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε τῶνδέ τοι ἔμπαν αἵρεσιν
παρδίδωμ᾽: εἰ μὲν θάνατόν τε φυγὼν καὶ γῆρας ἀπεχθόμενον
αὐτὸς Οὔλυμπον θέλεις ναίειν ἐμοὶ σύν τ᾽ Ἀθαναίᾳ κελαινεγχεῖ τ᾽ Ἄρει,
85 [160] ἔστι τοι τούτων λάχος: εἰ δὲ κασιγνήτου πέρι
μάρνασαι, πάντων δὲ νοεῖς ἀποδάσσασθαι ἴσον,
ἥμισυ μέν κε πνέοις γαίας ὑπένερθεν ἐών,
ἥμισυ δ᾽ οὐρανοῦ ἐν χρυσέοις δόμοισιν.’
ὣς ἄρ᾽ αὐδάσαντος οὐ γνώμᾳ διπλόαν θέτο βουλάν.
90 [170] ἀνὰ δ᾽ ἔλυσεν μὲν ὀφθαλμόν, ἔπειτα δὲ φωνὰν χαλκομίτρα Κάστορος.

For Idas, angered for some reason about his cattle (ἀμφὶ βουσίν), stabbed him with the point of his bronze spear. ooking out from Taÿgetus, Lynceus saw them seated in the hollow of an oak; for that man had the sharpest eye of all who live on earth. He and Idas at once reached the spot with swift feet, and quickly contrived a mighty deed; [65] and these sons of Aphareus themselves suffered terribly by the devising of Zeus. For right away Polydeuces the son of Leda came in pursuit. They were stationed opposite, near the tomb of their father; from there they seized the grave-column, monument to Hades, a polished stone, and hurled it at the chest of Polydeuces. But they did not crush him, or drive him back; rushing forward with his swift javelin, [70] he drove its bronze point into the ribs of Lynceus, and Zeus hurled against Idas a fiery smoking thunderbolt. They burned together, deserted. Strife with those who are stronger is a harsh companion for men. Swiftly Polydeuces the son of Tyndareus went back to his mighty brother, and found him not yet dead, but shuddering with gasps of breath. [75] Shedding warm tears amid groans, he spoke aloud: “Father, son of Cronus, what release will there be from sorrows? Order me to die too, along with him, lord. A man's honour is gone when he is deprived of friends; but few mortals are trustworthy in times of toil to share the hardship.” So he spoke. And Zeus came face to face with him, [80] and said these words: “You are my son. But Castor was begotten after your conception by the hero, your mother's husband, who came to her and sowed his mortal seed. But nevertheless I grant you your choice in this. If you wish to escape death and hated old age, and to dwell in Olympus yourself with me and with Athena and Ares of the dark spear, [85] you can have this lot. But if you strive to save your brother, and intend to share everything equally with him, then you may breathe for half the time below the earth, and for half the time in the golden homes of heaven.” When Zeus had spoken thus, Polydeuces did not have a second thought. [90] He opened the eye, and then released the voice of the bronze-clad warrior, Castor.

It may well be that the hiding in the oak tree shouldn't be looked upon as a straightforward hiding, but is rather to be thought of as a part of an ambush laid by Castor and Polydeuces for their maternal cousins which didn't work as they had forgotten about Lynceus' keen sight. But would they ever have been likely to forget this? Lycophron's Alexandra, lines 550-1 (ἦ πολλὰ δὴ βέλεμνα Κνηκιὼν πόρος ... ἐπόψεται, many a shaft shall the stream of Cnacion behold), suggest that the fight between the cousins took place by the Cnacion, which Plutarch tells us in his life of Lycurgus is the Oenus, now called Κελεφίνα Kelefina, an eastern tributary of the Eurotas to the north of Sparta. But in calling Aphareus' gravestone that is hurled in the fight, line 559, "τῶν Ἀμυκλαίων τάφων" "the Amyclaean tomb" we also seem to be at Amyclae (Ἀμύκλαι) twenty stadia south of Sparta! Lycophron's Alexandra furthermore tells us that this was all done at the will of Zeus so that Castor and Polydeuces (and Idas and Lynceus) wouldn't come to Troy for it would then have fallen in a day!.

The difficulties inherant with this narrative however led to an alternative scenario which we find in Apollodorus:

[2] .... ἐλάσαντες δὲ ἐκ τῆς Ἀρκαδίας βοῶν λείαν μετὰ τῶν Ἀφαρέως παίδων Ἴδα καὶ Λυγκέως, ἐπιτρέπουσιν Ἴδᾳ διελεῖν: ὁ δὲ τεμὼν βοῦν εἰς μέρη τέσσαρα, τοῦ πρώτου καταφαγόντος εἶπε τῆς λείας τὸ ἥμισυ ἔσεσθαι, καὶ τοῦ δευτέρου τὸ λοιπόν. καὶ φθάσας κατηνάλωσε τὸ μέρος τὸ ἴδιον πρῶτος Ἴδας, καὶ τὸ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ, καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου τὴν λείαν εἰς Μεσσήνην ἤλασε. στρατεύσαντες δὲ ἐπὶ Μεσσήνην οἱ Διόσκουροι τήν τε λείαν ἐκείνην καὶ πολλὴν ἄλλην συνελαύνουσι. καὶ τὸν Ἴδαν ἐλόχων καὶ τὸν Λυγκέα. Λυγκεὺς δὲ ἰδὼν Κάστορα ἐμήνυσεν Ἴδᾳ, κἀκεῖνος αὐτὸν κτείνει. Πολυδεύκης δὲ ἐδίωξεν αὐτούς, καὶ τὸν μὲν Λυγκέα κτείνει τὸ δόρυ προέμενος, τὸν δὲ Ἴδαν διώκων, βληθεὶς ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου πέτρᾳ κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς, πίπτει σκοτωθείς. καὶ Ζεὺς Ἴδαν κεραυνοῖ, Πολυδεύκην δὲ εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀνάγει. μὴ δεχομένου δὲ Πολυδεύκους τὴν ἀθανασίαν ὄντος νεκροῦ Κάστορος, Ζεὺς ἀμφοτέροις παρ᾽ ἡμέραν καὶ ἐν θεοῖς εἶναι καὶ ἐν θνητοῖς ἔδωκε. μεταστάντων δὲ εἰς θεοὺς τῶν Διοσκούρων, Τυνδάρεως μεταπεμψάμενος Μενέλαον εἰς Σπάρτην τούτῳ τὴν βασιλείαν παρέδωκεν.

[2] ....And having driven booty of cattle from Arcadia, in company with Idas and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus, they allowed Idas to divide the spoil. He cut a cow in four and said that one half of the booty should be his who ate his share first, and that the rest should be his who ate his share second. And before they knew where they were, Idas had swallowed his own share first and likewise his brother's, and with him had driven off the captured cattle to Messene. But the Dioscuri marched against Messene, and drove away that cattle and much else besides. And they lay in wait for Idas and Lynceus. But Lynceus spied Castor and discovered him to Idas, who killed him. Pollux chased them and slew Lynceus by throwing his spear, but in pursuing Lynceus he was wounded in the head with a stone thrown by him, and fell down in a swoon. And Zeus smote Idas with a thunderbolt, but Pollux he carried up to heaven. Nevertheless, as Pollux refused to accept immortality while his brother Castor was dead, Zeus permitted them both to be every other day among the gods and among mortals. And when the Dioscuri were translated to the gods, Tyndareus sent for Menelaus to Sparta and handed over the kingdom to him.

Pausanias tells us their tombs of Idas and Lynceus were shown at Sparta near the μνῆμα (see below) of Castor (3.13.1), but he doesn't think these are likely to be theirs.

δείκνυται δὲ πρὸς τῇ Σκιάδι καὶ Ἴδα καὶ Λυγκέως τάφος. κατὰ μὲν δὴ τοῦ λόγου τὸ εἰκὸς ἐτάφησαν ἐν τῇ Μεσσηνίᾳ καὶ οὐ ταύτῃ:

By the Canopy is also shown the grave of Idas and Lynceus. Now it fits in best with their history to hold that they were buried not here but in Messenia.

The death of Idas and Lynceus was the end of the line of Aphareus, thus Pausanias 4.3.1:

“ἐπεὶ δὲ τοῖς Ἀφαρέως παισὶ πρὸς τοὺς Διοσκούρους ἐγένετο ἀνεψιοὺς ὄντας μάχη περὶ τῶν βοῶν καὶ τὸν μὲν Πολυδεύκης ἀπέκτεινεν, Ἴδαν δὲ ἐπέλαβε τὸ χρεὼν κεραυνωθέντα, ὁ μὲν Ἀφαρέως οἶκος γένους παντὸς ἠρήμωτο τοῦ ἄρρενος, ἐς δὲ Νέστορα τὸν τοῦ Νηλέως περιῆλθε Μεσσηνίων ἡ ἀρχὴ τῶν τε ἄλλων καὶ ὅσων πρότερον ἐβασίλευεν Ἴδας, πλὴν ὅσοι τοῖς Ἀσκληπιοῦ παισὶν αὐτῶν ὑπήκουον.

“After the fight about the cattle between the sons of Aphareus and their cousins the Dioscuri, when Lynceus was killed by Polydeuces and Idas met his doom from the lightning, the house of Aphareus was bereft of all male descendants, and the kingdom of Messenia passed to Nestor the son of Neleus, including all the part ruled formerly by Idas, but not that subject to the sons of Asclepius."

Aphareus had welcomed his kinsman Neleus, the father of Nestor, in Messenia and given him Pylos after Neleus had been driven out of Iolcos in Thessaly by his brother Pelias (Paus. 4.2.5).

Trees

We have already spoken about the links between the Dioscuri and trees in an earlier post [here] of which Castor and Polydeuces' hiding in an oak is a distant memory.

Tombs?

Pausanias says Castor's μνῆμα monument, maybe a tomb, was hard by the Σκιάς in Sparta with the tomb (τάφος) of his forefather Cynortas (3.13.1). Although Pindar says the Dioscuri are beneath the earth (ὑπὸ ... γαίας) every other day at Therapne, Pausanias says no more about Therapne and the sons of Tyndareus than (3.20.1):

ἡ δὲ Πολυδεύκειά ἐστιν αὐτή τε ἡ κρήνη καὶ Πολυδεύκους ἱερὸν ἐν δεξιᾷ τῆς ἐς Θεράπνην ὁδοῦ.

"The fountain Polydeucea and a sanctuary of Polydeuces are on the right of the road to Therapne."

And the so-called Phoebaeum (Φοιβαῖόν) near Therapne (3.14.9-10) might be a shrine to Phoebe, one of their wives. Though the main shrine of the Leucippides (Λευκιππίδες), Phoebe (Φοίβη) and Hilaeira (Ἱλάειρα) would seem to be at Sparta (3.16.1) near their old home (3.16.2).The Spartans also said that Helen is buried with Menelaus in a temple at Therapne (3.19.9). The folk of Rhodes have another story (3.19.10), and Pausanias tells a tale of her being the wife of Achilles on a mythic and otherworldly White Island (3.9.11 - 3.20.1).

Dokana

We have already said much about this old token of the heavenly Twins found in Sparta, see [here] and [here].The Ετυμολογικόν Μέγα (s.v., p. 282.5-7 Sylburg) links the dokana to the doorways to their tombs:

δόκανα. τάφοι τινὲς ἐν Λακεδαιμονίᾳ∙ παρὰ τὸ δέξασθαι τοὺς [αντί του "τὰς"] Τυνδαρίδας, φαντασίαν ἔχοντα [αντί του "ἐχούσας"] τάφων ἀνεῳγμένων). ἢ παρὰ τὸ δοκεῖν, δόκανον.

Some tombs in Lacedaemonia. By that they wish to betoken the Tyndaridae having the appearance of an opened tomb. Or from what they seemed, upright posts.

But the Heavenly Twins have a long history of being linked to doorways. We later find in the Christian religion that one of their quasi-Heavenly Twins, Peter and Paul, has "the keys of the kingdom of heaven". And the reputed place of Peter's crucifixion, the janiculum, was a hill hallowed long beforehand to to Janus (Ovid Fasti book 1, line 139 ) "caelestis ianitor aulae" "doorward of the heavenly halls". And Janus "Geminus" seems to be the Heavenly Twins literally united in one body. Macrobius reports the old and interesting ideas that Janus was the same as Apollo Thyraios (Θυραῖος), and that he was Apollo and Diana in one. Apollo Thyraios shows us that the door-warding, like healing, fell to Leto's rather than Leda's children. In truth Castor and Polydeuces' δόκανα have much in common with Janus's "jani".

Ṛgvedaḥ 8.5.21:

uta no divyā iṣa uta sindhūṃr aharvidā |
apa dvāreva varṣathaḥ ||

21 Ye too unclose to us like doors the strengthening waters of the sky,
And rivers, ye who find the day.

21. And heavenly refreshments and rivers, o finders of the days—
like two doors, you will open (these) up for us.

And 10.40.12-13:

ā vām agan sumatir vājinīvasū ny aśvinā hṛtsu kāmā ayaṃsata |

abhūtaṃ gopā mithunā śubhas patī priyā aryamṇo duryāṃ aśīmahi ||

tā mandasānā manuṣo duroṇa ā dhattaṃ rayiṃ sahavīraṃ vacasyave |

kṛtaṃ tīrthaṃ suprapāṇaṃ śubhas patī sthāṇum patheṣṭhām apa durmatiṃ hatam ||

12 Your favouring grace hath come, ye Lords of ample wealth: Aśvins, our longings are stored up within your hearts.

Ye, Lords of splendour, have become our twofold guard (gopā mithunā): may we as welcome friends (priyā) reach Aryaman's abode (aryamṇo duryāṃ).

13 Even so, rejoicing in the dwelling-place of man, give hero sons and riches to the eloquent.

Make a ford (kṛtaṃ tīrthaṃ), Lords of splendour, where men well may drink: remove the spiteful tree-stump standing in the path.

12. Your benevolence has come here, you Aśvins whose goods are prize

mares. Our desires have held themselves down firmly in our hearts,

Aśvins.

You have become the paired herdsmen, the two lords of beauty. Dear to

Aryaman, might we reach his porticos.

13. Reaching exhilaration in the dwelling of Manu, provide wealth along

with heroes to the eloquent one.

Make a ford that offers good drink, o lords of beauty. Smash away the

post standing in our path, the malevolence.

duryāṃ is the word for an abode, but takes its name from its doors (duraḥ). Aryamā́ or Aryaman being a god who welcomes folk to the heavenly home. Aryamṇáḥ panthāḥ "Aryaman's Path" is a heavenly or heavenward path to the forefathers who have gone before, identified by some scholars with the ecliptic or the Milky Way.

The lions that are shown warding doorways may well go back to the heavenly Twins, and Lycophron in his riddling poem Alexandra, calls Castor and Polydeuces οἱ λεόντων "these lions" line 517.

One day above, the next below

In the Odyssey book 11we have such an odd thing said about Castor and Polydeuces:.

καὶ Λήδην εἶδον, τὴν Τυνδαρέου παράκοιτιν,
ἥ ῥ᾽ ὑπὸ Τυνδαρέῳ κρατερόφρονε γείνατο παῖδε,
300 Κάστορά θ᾽ ἱππόδαμον καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεα,
τοὺς ἄμφω ζωοὺς κατέχει φυσίζοος αἶα:
οἳ καὶ νέρθεν γῆς τιμὴν πρὸς Ζηνὸς ἔχοντες
ἄλλοτε μὲν ζώουσ᾽ ἑτερήμεροι, ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖτε
τεθνᾶσιν: τιμὴν δὲ λελόγχασιν ἶσα θεοῖσι.

“And I saw Lede, the wife of Tyndareus,
who bore to Tyndareus two sons, stout of heart,
[300] Castor the tamer of horses, and the boxer Polydeuces.
These two the earth, the giver of life, covers, albeit alive,
and even in the world below they have honour from Zeus.
One day they live in turn, and one day they are dead;
and they have won honor like unto that of the gods."

And in Pindar's Tenth Nemean Ode (awend. Diane Arnson Svarlien):

μεταμειβόμενοι δ᾽ ἐναλλὰξ ἁμέραν τὰν μὲν παρὰ πατρὶ φίλῳ
Δὶ νέμονται, τὰν δ᾽ ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίας ἐν γυάλοις Θεράπνας,
πότμον ἀμπιπλάντες ὁμοῖον: ἐπεὶ
τοῦτον, ἢ πάμπαν θεὸς ἔμμεναι οἰκεῖν τ᾽ οὐρανῷ,
[110] εἵλετ᾽ αἰῶνα φθιμένου Πολυδεύκης Κάστορος ἐν πολέμῳ.
τὸν γὰρ Ἴδας ἀμφὶ βουσίν πως χολωθεὶς ἔτρωσεν χαλκέας λόγχας ἀκμᾷ.
ἀπὸ Ταϋγέτου πεδαυγάζων ἴδεν Λυγκεὺς δρυὸς ἐν στελέχει
ἡμένους. κείνου γὰρ ἐπιχθονίων πάντων γένετ᾽ ὀξύτατον
ὄμμα.

Changing places in alternation, the Dioscuri spend
one day beside their dear father Zeus,
and the other beneath the depths of the earth in the hollows of Therapne,
each fulfilling an equal destiny,
since Polydeuces preferred this life
to being wholly a god and living in heaven, when Castor was killed in battle.
For Idas, angered for some reason about his cattle, stabbed him with the point of his bronze spear. Looking out from Taÿgetus, Lynceus saw them seated in the hollow of an oak (δρυὸς);
for that man had the sharpest eye of all who live on earth.

Homer's ἑτερ-ήμερος leaves us in no doubt that the shifts undergone by the twins are daily ones, whilst "τοὺς ἄμφω" "these two", as also the context, leave us in no doubt that both Castor and Polydeuces are inseparably together, whether above or below. This, needless to say, kills off a good many theories, both ancient and modern, as to what physical phenomena the Dioscuri are meant to betoken. For the morning and evening stars, or the two world halves or hemispheres (day and night), are never seen so that the watcher can say they are both together. And whilst the sun and moon can be seen together in heaven at times, it is hardly a daily thing. To say that they are the light and dark halves of the year is just a variation of the world-halves theory and cannot be right for the same reason. The truth is that the "physici" were an ancient sect that sought to outfold the gods, whose true origin was so old it had been forgotten, by rather commonplace observations of physical phenomena and a flawed assumption that all the gods began as physical or natural forces.

The true meaning of these riddling words of Homer is only to be understood if we take the "in the world below" (νέρθεν γῆς = lit. "under the earth") to mean our world, the world of nature (physis), the physical or material plane, where death is, as it were, the king of all. Thus Plato likens the material universe to a cave in his Republic, and in his Gorgias 492e:

“τίς δ᾽ οἶδεν, εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν,
τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῆν; ... ”

“Who knows if to live is to be dead,
And to be dead, to live?”

[Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 awent by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967. ]

Thus the life of the mortal body is to be thought of as the "death" (=imprisonment) of the immortal soul, and the "life" of the immortal soul (=freeing from prison) is the death of the mortal body. Lessening the one was always thought to reveal the working of the other.

“τὸ δὲ ἕτερον ἐλαττωθὲν τὴν τοῦ ἑτέρου ἐφανέρωσεν ἐνέργειαν”
“but lessening the one reveals the activity of the other” (Hermetica IV. §6 see B. Copenhaver’s outsetting lf.16).

The world of the gods in this scheme, needless to say, is alone truly alive, knowing no death, immortal meaning literally "deathless".

When Porphry tells us in his 'On the Homeric Cave of the Nymphs', that as well as a cave, the sea was also taken as a symbol of the material world, we see that the "saving" of "seafarers" done by the Heavenly Twins, can be interpreted, in its highest interpretation, as the saving of souls from imprisonment in matter.

" τὸ δὲ ἀνακτόρειον <διὰ> τὸ ἄνω."

"But "Anactorium" is of the same import with the expression "to ascend upwards." ...".

The links that the Dioscuri have with migratory birds such as swans and geese should also be looked at in this light.

A fitting Epitaph

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History Book 6 Fragment 6 :

Ὅτι παραδέδονται Κάστωρ καὶ Πολυδεύκης, οἱ καὶ Διόσκοροι, πολὺ τῶν ἄλλων ἀρετῇ διενεγκεῖν καὶ συστρατεῦσαι τοῖς Ἀργοναύταις ἐπιφανέστατα· πολλοῖς δὲ δεομένοις ἐπικουρίας βεβοηθηκέναι. Καθόλου δὲ ἐπ' ἀνδρείᾳ καὶ στρατηγίᾳ, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ εὐσεβείᾳ, παρὰ πᾶσι σχεδὸν ἀνθρώποις ἔσχον δόξαν, ἐπιφανεῖς βοηθοὶ τοῖς παρὰ λόγον κινδυνεύουσι γινόμενοι. Διὰ δὲ τὴν ὑπερβολὴν τῆς ἀρετῆς Διὸς υἱοὺς νενομίσθαι, καὶ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων μεταστάντας τιμῶν τυχεῖν ἀθανάτων.

"According to tradition, Castor and Polydeuces, who were also known as the Dioscori, far surpassed all other men in valour and gained the greatest distinction in the campaign in which they took part with the Argonauts; and they have come to the aid of many who have stood in need of succour. And, speaking generally, their manly spirit and skill as generals, and their justice and piety as well, have won them fame among practically all men, since they make their appearance as helpers of those who fall into unexpected perils. Moreover, because of their exceptional valour they have been judged to be sons of Zeus, and when they departed from among mankind they attained to immortal honours."

Farewell

Truefastness

Thursday 8 April 2021

Castor and Polydeuces (Κάστωρ καὶ Πολυδεύκης)

"Castor et Pollux"

After the House of their Fathers

Birth in Exile

Herakles.

the Dioscuri... along with Hermes and Heracles, administer the flourishing institution of the games....

Tamers of Horses?

Charioteers

With Good Hands

Chiron

Hunting the Boar of Calydon

Argonauts

Friends of Guests ...

Dancers

Ploughmen (with yokis of a pleuch ...)

Builders

"mysterious light of unknown origin"

ἐπὶ Σάγρᾳ

Into Attica

The Rescuers of Helen

Healers?

Phoebe and Hilaira

Idas and Lynceus

Trees

Tombs?

Dokana

One day above, the next below

A fitting Epitaph

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