page_title: Castor and Pollux
section_title: Classical sources
hierarchical_section_title: Castor and Pollux / Classical sources
caption_attribution_description: English: Dioskouroi, pair of statuettes. Roman artwork of the 3rd century AD. Français&#160;: Dioscures, paire de statuettes. Œuvre romaine du IIIe siècle apr. J.-C.
context_page_description: Castor and Pollux were twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri.
  Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.
  In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids. Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire. They were also associated with horsemanship, in keeping with their origin as the Indo-European horse twins.
context_section_description: Ancient Greek authors tell a number of versions of the story of Castor and Pollux.  Homer portrays them initially as ordinary mortals, treating them as dead in the Iliad ("... there are two commanders I do not see, / Castor the horse breaker and the boxer / Polydeuces, my brothers ..." – Helen, Iliad 3.253–255), but in the Odyssey they are treated as alive even though "the corn-bearing earth holds them". The author describes them as "having honour equal to gods", living on alternate days because of the intervention of Zeus. In both the Odyssey and in Hesiod, they are described as the sons of Tyndareus and Leda. In Pindar, Pollux is the son of Zeus while Castor is the son of the mortal Tyndareus. The theme of ambiguous parentage is not unique to Castor and Pollux; similar characterisations appear in the stories of Hercules and Theseus. The Dioscuri are also invoked in Alcaeus' Fragment 34a, though whether this poem antedates the Homeric Hymn to the twins is unknown. They appear together in two plays by Euripides, Helen and Elektra.
  Cicero tells the story of how Simonides of Ceos was rebuked by Scopas, his patron, for devoting too much space to praising Castor and Pollux in an ode celebrating Scopas' victory in a chariot race. Shortly afterwards, Simonides was told that two young men wished to speak to him; after he had left the banqueting room, the roof fell in and crushed Scopas and his guests.
caption: Pair of Roman statuettes (3rd century AD) depicting the Dioscuri as horsemen, with their characteristic skullcaps (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
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