According to the legend, the twin heroes Dioskouri, Castor and Polydeukis

Were born on Taygetus, the great mountain of Sparta and Tainarus, so they are preeminently heroes of Doric origin. In Sparta, the king of Tyndareus, had for his wife the beautiful Leda, daughter of the king of Aetolia, Thestius. Leda married Zeus and had two children with him, Helen, who was as beautiful as a goddess, and Polydeukis, the heroic hero. With King Tyndareus, Leda had two more children, Clytemnestra and Castor.

Polydeuces received immortality from his father the god Zeus, but his brother, Castor, remained mortal, because he was the son of the mortal king. They both became big and jerks, no one could go wrong with Castor, in his skill in driving the chariot, where he managed to tame even the most unruly horses. And Polydevkis was a brave boxing champion. The two were never separated from each other because they were united by fiery love.

The Dioscuri took part in many great exploits of the Greek heroes, took part in the Argonautic Campaign and distinguished themselves especially against the king of the Bevryks, Amykus, who was defeated by Polydeukis, thus putting all the Bevryks to flight. When Theseus and Peirithus descended to the Underworld to seize Persephone, the Dioscuri launched a campaign against Athens, claiming their sister Helen, whom Theseus had abducted and imprisoned in the Aphidna fortress in Laconia. So, while Theseus was away, they freed their sister and took Theseus’s mother, Aithra, captive in Sparta. In addition, they removed the sons of Theseus from the throne of Athens and replaced them with the claimant to the kingdom, Menesthea.

The Dioskouri had two cousins, Lygea and Ida, who were children of the king of Messinia, Aphareus. Idas was a fearless warrior and his brother, Lygeus, was renowned for the power of his sight; he could see even under the earth. The Dioscuri along with these Messenian cousins did many feats together. Once, all four grabbed a herd of oxen from Arcadia and decided to divide them among themselves. Idas would do the distribution.
He, however, wanted to put the herd in his hands with his brother and devised a trick: He cut an ox in four. he gave each one a piece and proposed that the one who would first devour his portion should take half of the herd, and the other half should fall to the one who came second. Idas ate his piece first and urged Lygeas to eat his too. Castoras and Polydeukis were terribly angry as if they saw that Idas had laughed at them and decided to take revenge on their cousins, who until then had an unshakable friendship with them. They raided Messinia and seized, not only the herd they had taken from Arcadia, but also some of the herds of Ida and Lygeus. But they were not satisfied with these, but also stole their fiancees.
The Dioscuri knew that Idas and Lygeas would not forgive them for what they had done to them, so they decided to hide in the hollow of a huge tree and wait there, until their cousins began to chase them. They wanted to surprise them, because they were shadowing to fight with the super-powerful Ida who, once, dared to fight for a woman, even with the god Apollo. But they could not hide from the piercing eyes of Lygea, who saw them in the tree’s canopy, above the peaks of Taygetus. Idas and Lygeas rushed upon the Dioscuri.

Before they could even get out of hiding, Idas threw his pole into the tree and seriously injured Castor. Polydeukis smiled at them. The Afarides could not deal with him and put him to death. Polydeukis reached them somewhere near the grave of their parents. He killed Lygeus and began to fight, for life or death, with Ida. The mighty Zeus then intervened to stop the battle, throwing a bolt of lightning that reduced both Ida and the corpse of Lygeus to ashes.

Polydeukis turned to where Castoras lay mortally wounded and wept bitterly as if he saw death separating them. He begged his father Zeus to let him die with his beloved brother. Zeus then appeared to his son and made him choose: Either live forever young among the bright gods of Olympus, or live forever with his brother one day in the gloomy realm of Hades, and the next in Olympus. Polydevkis did not want to be separated from his brother. And so he shared his fate.

Since then, these two brothers wander one day in the dark plains of the kingdom of Hades and the next, live with the gods in the palaces of the leader of the gods, Zeus.

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  1. klining_nwoi
    klining_nwoi on September 14, 2024 at 10:10 am
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