The conventional account (attested first in Pindar, Nemean 10) combined these paternities so that only Pollux was fathered by Zeus, while Leda and her husband Tyndareus conceived Castor.

The figure of Tyndareus may have entered their tradition to explain their archaic name Tindaridai in Spartan inscriptions, or Tyndaridai in literature,[3] in turn occasioning incompatible accounts of their parentage.

Homer portrays them initially as ordinary mortals, treating them as dead in the Iliad: but in the Odyssey they are described as both being alive, even though "the grain-bearing earth holds them".

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.

During the expedition of the Argonauts,[13] Pollux took part in a boxing contest and defeated King Amycus of the Bebryces, a savage mythical people in Bithynia.

After returning from the voyage, the Dioscuri helped Jason and Peleus to destroy the city of Iolcus in revenge for the treachery of its king Pelias.

[15] As they prepared to eat, the gigantic Idas suggested that the herd be divided into two parts instead of four, based on which pair of cousins finished their meal first.

[15] The uncle was on his way to Crete, so he left Helen in charge of entertaining the guests, which included both sets of cousins, as well as Paris, prince of Troy.

[15] Castor and Pollux recognized the opportunity to exact revenge, made an excuse that justified leaving the feast, and set out to steal their cousins' herd.

[15] Returning to the dying Castor, Pollux was given the choice by Zeus of spending all his time on Mount Olympus or giving half his immortality to his mortal brother.

They are depicted on metopes (an element of a Doric frieze) from Delphi showing them on the voyage of the Argo (Ἀργώ) and rustling cattle with Idas.

Greek vases regularly show them capturing Phoebe and Hilaeira, as Argonauts, as well as in religious ceremonies and at the delivery to Leda of the egg containing Helen.

[24] The Dioskouroi were worshipped by the Greeks and Romans alike; there were temples to the twins in Athens, such as the Anakeion, and Rome, as well as shrines in many other locations in the ancient world.

[3] Their herōon or grave-shrine was on a mountain top at Therapne across the Eurotas from Sparta, at a shrine known as the Meneláeion where Helen, Menelaus, Castor and Pollux were all said to be buried.

[30] The standard Spartan oath was to swear "by the two gods" (in Doric Greek: νά τώ θεὼ, ná tō theō, in the Dual number).

The two deities were summoned to a table laid with food, whether at individuals' own homes or in the public hearths or equivalent places controlled by states.

Although such "table offerings" were a fairly common feature of Greek cult rituals, they were normally made in the shrines of the gods or heroes concerned.

The heavenly twins appear in Indo-European tradition as the effulgent Vedic brother-horsemen called the Ashvins,[3][6] Lithuanian Ašvieniai, and possibly Germanic Alcis.

[42] From the 5th century BCE onwards, the brothers were revered by the Romans, probably as the result of cultural transmission via the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in southern Italy.

The establishment of a temple may also be a form of evocatio, the transferral of a tutelary deity from a defeated town to Rome, where cult would be offered in exchange for favor.

[44] According to legend, the twins fought at the head of the Roman army and subsequently brought news of the victory back to Rome.

The Roman legend could have had its origins in the Locrian account and possibly supplies further evidence of cultural transmission between Rome and Magna Graecia.

Each year on July 15, Feast Day of the Dioskouroi, 1,800 equestrians would parade through the streets of Rome in an elaborate spectacle in which each rider wore full military attire and whatever decorations he had earned.

[47] In translations of comedies by Plautus, women generally swear by Castor, and men by Pollux; this is exemplified by the slave-woman character Staphyla in A Pot of Gold (act i, ll.

[48] Photius wrote that Polydeuces was a lover of Hermes, and the god made him a gift of Dotor (Ancient Greek: Δώτορ), the Thessalian horse.

In some instances, the twins appear to have simply been absorbed into a Christian framework; thus 4th century CE pottery and carvings from North Africa depict the Dioskouroi alongside the Twelve Apostles, the Raising of Lazarus or with Saint Peter.

[20] The New Testament scholar Dennis MacDonald identifies Castor and Pollux as models for James son of Zebedee and his brother John in the Gospel of Mark.

The iconography of Castor and Pollux influenced or has close parallels with depictions of divine male twins in cultures with Greco-Roman relations.