Dioscuri sons of Zeus Gods Gemini Horsemen Roman Republic Greek coins
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Example of Authentic Ancient
Coin of:
Roman Republic Anonymous moneyer
Silver Denarius Rome mint: 211-208 and 206-195 B.C.
Reference: Anonymous 20x; B.M.C., 448 Italy, 23; Syd. 146, 244; Craw.
62/1 and 114/1
Head of Roma right, X behind.
The Dioscuri riding right, stars above, ROMA below, prow below horses.
In
traditional Roman religion, Roma
was a female
deity who personified the city of
Rome and more broadly, the Roman state.
Her image appears on the base of the
column of Antoninus Pius. Roma,
formerly queen of almost the whole earth. Horace (L. iv. od. 3) calls
her the prince of cities; and according to Martial (L. xii. epig. 8) she
is terrarum dea gentiumque.
Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin
brothers in
Greek and
Roman mythology and collectively known
as the
Dioskouroi. They were the sons of
Leda by
Tyndareus and
Zeus respectively, the brothers of
Helen of Troy and
Clytemnestra, and the half-brothers of
Timandra,
Phoebe,
Heracles, and
Philonoe. They are known collectively
in Greek as the Dioscuri (Latin:
Dioscūrī;
Greek:
Διόσκουροι, Dioskouroi, "sons of Zeus") and in Latin as
the Gemini ("twins") or Castores. They are sometimes also
termed the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids , later seen as a
reference to their father and stepfather
Tyndareus.
In the myth the twins shared the same mother but had different
fathers which meant that Pollux was immortal and Castor was mortal. When
Castor died, Pollux asked
Zeus to let him share his own
immortality with his twin to keep them together and they were
transformed into the
Gemini constellation. The pair were
regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as
St. Elmo's fire.
Birth and functions
Castor depicted on a calyx
krater of ca.
460–450 BC, holding a horse's reins and spears and wearing a pilos-style
helmet
The best-known story of the twins' birth is that Zeus disguised
himself as a swan and seduced Leda.
Thus Leda's children are frequently said to have hatched from two eggs
that she then produced. The Dioscuri can be recognized in vase-paintings
by the skull-cap they
wear, the pilos,
which was explained in antiquity as the remnants of the egg. Whether the
children are thus mortal and which half-immortal is not consistent among
accounts, nor is whether the twins hatched together from one egg. In
some accounts, only Polydeuces was fathered by Zeus, while Leda and her
husband Tyndareus conceived
Castor. This explains why they were granted an alternate immortality. It
is a common belief that one would live among the gods, while the other
was among the dead.[citation
needed] The
figure of Tyndareus may have entered their tradition to explain their
archaic name Tindaridai in
Spartan inscriptions or in literature Tyndaridai, in
turn occasioning incompatible accounts of their parentage.
Castor and Polydeuces are sometimes both mortal, sometimes both divine.
One consistent point is that if only one of them is immortal, it is
Polydeuces. In Homer's Iliad,
Helen looks down from the walls of Troy and wonders why she does not see
her brothers among the Achaeans. The narrator remarks that they are both
already dead and buried back in their homeland of Lacedaemon, thus
suggesting that at least in some early traditions, both were mortal.
Their death and shared immortality offered by Zeus was material of the
lost Cypria in
the Epic
cycle.
The Dioscuri were regarded as helpers of mankind and held to be patrons
of travellers and of sailors in particular, who invoked them to seek
favourable winds. Their role
as horsemen and boxers also led to them being regarded as the patrons of
athletes and athletic contests. They
characteristically intervened at the moment of crisis, aiding those who
honoured or trusted them.
Classical sources
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,
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 due to 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 inAlcaeus'
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.
Adventures
Both Dioscuri were excellent horsemen and hunters who participated in
the hunting of the Calydonian
Boar and later joined the
crew of Jason's
ship, the Argo.
As Argonauts
During the expedition of the Argonauts,
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 Dioskouroi helped Jason and Peleus to
destroy the city of Iolcus in
revenge for the treachery of its king Pelias.
Rescuing Helen
When their sister Helen was abducted by the legendary Greek king Theseus,
the brothers invaded his kingdom of Attica to
rescue her. In revenge they abducted Theseus' mother Aethra and
took her to Sparta while setting his rival, Menestheus,
on the throne of Athens. Aethra was then forced to become Helen's slave.
She was ultimately returned to her home by her grandsons Demophon and Acamas after
the fall of Troy.
The
Leucippides, Lynceus and death
Roman sarcophagus (160 AD) depicting the rape of the
Leucippides, Phoebe and Hilaeira (Vatican
Museum)
Castor and Pollux aspired to marry the Leucippides ("daughters of the
white horse"), Phoebe and Hilaeira,
whose father was a brother of Leucippus ("white
horse").[a] Both
women were already betrothed to cousins of the Dioscuri, the twin
brothers Lynceus and Idas of Thebes,
sons ofTyndareus's
brother Aphareus.
Castor and Pollux carried the women off to Sparta wherein
each had a son; Phoebe bore Mnesileos to Pollux and Hilaeira bore Anogon
to Castor. This begat a family feud among the four sons of the brothers
Tyndareus and Aphareus.
Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus by Rubens,
ca. 1618
The cousins carried out a cattle-raid in Arcadia together
but fell out over the division of the meat. After stealing the herd, but
before dividing it, the cousins butchered, quartered, and roasted a
calf. 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. Castor
and Pollux agreed. Idas
quickly ate both his portion and Lynceus' portion. Castor
and Pollux had been duped. They allowed their cousins to take the entire
herd, but vowed to someday take revenge.
Some time later, Idas and Lynceus visited their uncle's home in Sparta. 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. 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. Idas and Lynceus
eventually set out for home, leaving Helen alone with Paris, who then
kidnapped her.
Thus, the four cousins helped set into motion the
events that gave rise to the Trojan War.
Meanwhile, Castor and Pollux had reached their destination. Castor
climbed a tree to keep a watch as Pollux began to free the cattle. Far
away, Idas and Lynceus approached. Lynceus, named for the lynx because
he could see in the dark, spied Castor hiding in the tree. Idas
and Lynceus immediately understood what was happening. Idas, furious,
ambushed Castor, fatally wounding him with a blow from his spear—but not
before Castor called out to warn Pollux. In
the ensuing brawl, Pollux killed Lynceus. As Idas was about to kill
Pollux, Zeus, who had been watching from Mt. Olympus, hurled a
thunderbolt, killing Idas and saving his son.
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. He opted for the latter, enabling
the twins to alternate between Olympus andHades. The
brothers became the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini ("the
twins"): Castor (Alpha
Geminorum) and Pollux (Beta
Geminorum). As emblems of immortality and death, the Dioscuri, like Heracles,
were said to have been initiated into the Eleusinian
mysteries.
Iconography
Castor and Pollux are consistently associated with horses in art and
literature. They are widely depicted as helmeted horsemen carrying
spears. The Pseudo-Oppian manuscript
depicts the brothers hunting, both on horseback and on foot.
On votive reliefs
they are depicted with a variety of symbols representing the concept of
twinhood, such as the dokana (δόκανα
– two upright pieces of wood connected by two cross-beams), a pair of amphorae,
a pair of shields, or a pair of snakes. They are also often shown
wearing felt caps, above which stars may be depicted. They are depicted
on metopes from Delphi showing
them on the voyage of the Argo (Ἀργώ)
and rustling cattle with Idas. Greek
vases regularly show them
in the rape of the Leucippides,
as Argonauts,
in religious ceremonies and at the delivery to Leda of
the egg containing Helen. They
can be recognized in some vase-paintings by the skull-cap they
wear, the pilos (πῖλος),
which was already explained in antiquity as the remnants of the egg from
which they hatched.
Shrines and rites
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.
The Dioscuri and their sisters having grown up in Sparta,
in the royal household of Tyndareus,
they were particularly important to the Spartans,
who associated them with the Spartan tradition of dual kingship and
appreciated that two princes of their ruling house were elevated to
immortality. Their connection there was very ancient: a uniquely Spartan
aniconic representation of the Tyndaridai was as two upright posts
joined by a cross-bar; as the
protectors of the Spartan army the "beam figure" or dókana was
carried in front of the army on campaign. Sparta's
unique dual kingship reflects the divine influence of the Dioscuri. When
the Spartan army marched to war, one king remained behind at home,
accompanied by one of the Twins. "In this way the real political order
is secured in the realm of the Gods".
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. Castor
himself was also venerated in the region of Kastoria in
northern Greece.
Relief (2nd century BC) depicting the Dioscuri galloping
above a winged Victory, with a banquet (theoxenia) laid
out for them below
They were commemorated both as gods on Olympus worthy of holocaust,
and as deceased mortals in Hades, whose spirits had to be propitiated by libations.
Lesser shrines to Castor, Pollux and Helen were also established at a
number of other locations around Sparta. The pear tree
was regarded by the Spartans as sacred to Castor and Pollux, and images
of the twins were hung in its branches.
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 rite of theoxenia (θεοξενία),
"god-entertaining", was particularly associated with Castor and Pollux.
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. They are sometimes shown arriving at a gallop over
a food-laden table. 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 domestic setting of the theoxenia was
a characteristic distinction accorded to the Dioskouroi.
The image of the twins attending a goddess are widespread and
link the Dioscuri with the male societies of initiates under the aegis
of the Anatolian
Great Goddess and the
great gods ofSamothrace.
The Dioscuri are the inventors of war dances, which characterize the Kuretes.
Indo-European
analogues
Main article: Divine
twins
The heavenly twins appear also in the Indo-European tradition
as the effulgent Vedic brother-horsemen
the Ashvins, the Lithuanian Ašvieniai,
and the Germanic Alcis.
Italy and the
Roman Empire
From the fifth century BC 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. An archaic Latin inscription of the sixth or fifth century BC
found at Lavinium,
which reads Castorei
Podlouqueique qurois ("To
Castor and Pollux, the Dioskouroi"), suggests a direct transmission from
the Greeks; the word "qurois" is virtually a transliteration of
the Greek word κούροις,
while "Podlouquei" is effectively a transliteration of the Greek Πολυδεύκης. The
construction of the Temple
of Castor and Pollux, located in the Roman
Forum at the heart of
their city, was undertaken to fulfil a vow (votum) made
by Aulus
Postumius Albus Regillensis in
gratitude at the Roman victory in the Battle
of Lake Regillus in 495
BC. The establishing of the 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. According
to legend, the twins fought at the head of the Roman army and
subsequently brought news of the victory back to Rome. The Locrians of Magna
Graecia had attributed
their success at a legendary battle on the banks of the Sagras to the
intervention of the Twins. The Roman legend may in fact have had its
origins in the Locrian account and possibly supplies further evidence of
cultural transmission between Rome and Magna Graecia.
The Romans believed that the twins aided them on the battlefield. Their
role as horsemen made them particularly attractive to the Roman equites and
cavalry. Each year on July 15, the feast day of the Dioskouroi, the
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.
In the comedies of Plautus,
women swear by Castor, and men by Pollux.
Etruscan
Kastur and Pultuce
Etruscan inscription to the Dioscuri as "sons of Zeus" on
the bottom of an Attic
red-figure kylix (ca.
515–510 BC)
The Etruscans venerated
the twins as Kastur and Pultuce,
collectively the tinas
cliniiaras, "sons of Tinia,"
the Etruscan counterpart of Zeus. They were often portrayed on Etruscan
mirrors.[39] As
was the fashion in Greece, they could also be portrayed symbolically;
one example can be seen in the Tomba del Letto Funebre at Tarquinia where
a lectisternium for
them is painted. They are symbolised in the painting by the presence of
two pointed caps crowned with laurel, referring to thePhrygian
caps which they were
often depicted as wearing.
Celtic Dioscuri
The 1st-century BC historian Diodorus
Siculus records
counterparts of the Dioscuri among the Atlantic Celts:
The Celts who dwell along the ocean venerate gods who resemble
our Dioscuri above any of the gods, since they have a tradition
handed down from ancient times that these gods came among them
from the ocean. Moreover, there are on the ocean shore, they
say, many names which are derived from the Argonauts and the
Dioscuri.
Diodorus cites Timaeus (3rd
century BC) as his source, so the passage is usually regarded as a
description of an authentic Celtic tradition rather than an adoption
from the Romans as a result of the conquest. The
divine twins among the Celts would be analogous in the Indo-European
tradition to the Vedic Aśvins, or to the Germanic twins mentioned
by Tacitus. Their
Celtic names are unknown; the conjecture Divanno and Dinomogetimarus,
based on an inscription from Héraultnaming
a pair of young warrior gods (Martes), has
not found wide support. The
19th-century Celticist Marie
Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville equated Cernunnos with
Castor and Smertullos with
Pollux, and conjectured that Cúchulainn andConall
Cernach were later
equivalents: "on the whole, the theory is more ingenious than
convincing." The Pillar
of the Boatmen depicts
the twins among Celtic figures such as Cernunnos and Esus,
as well as Roman deities such as Jupiter and Vulcan. The
Dioscuri are widely portrayed in Gallo-Roman
art, and references to them are more numerous in Gaul than in any
other part of the Roman Empire.
Christianization
Zeus, Hera,
and Amor observe
the birth of Helen and the Dioscuri (Dutch majolica,
1550)
Even after the rise of Christianity,
the Dioskouroi continued to be venerated. The fifth-century pope Gelasius
I attested to the
presence of a "cult of Castores" that the people did not want to
abandon. In some instances, the twins appear to have simply been
absorbed into a Christian framework; thus fourth-century AD pottery and
carvings from North Africa depict the Dioskouroi alongside the Twelve
Apostles, the Raising
of Lazarus or with Saint
Peter. The church took an ambivalent attitude, rejecting the
immortality of the Dioskouroi but seeking to replace them with
equivalent Christian pairs. Saints Peter and Paul were
thus adopted in place of the Dioskouroi as patrons of travelers, and Saints
Cosmas and Damian took
over their function as healers. Some have also associated Saints Speusippus,
Eleusippus, and Melapsippus with
the Dioskouroi.
In culture
The twins are mentioned in the Bible as
being the logo for a shipping company that carried Paul to Rome: Acts
28:11 (KJV)—"And
after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had
wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor
and Pollux."
Castor et Pollux was
the title of a 1737 opera by Jean-Philippe
Rameau (libretto by
Bernard), modified in 1754. The latter version became quite popular. The
Italian composer Francesco
Bianchi wrote another
version called Castore
e Polluce, first performed in 1779, and there was yet another
opera by the same title by Georg
Joseph Vogler in 1787. It
is also the name of a 1952 composition by the American composer Harry
Partch.
In 1842 Lord
Macaulay wrote a series
of poems about Ancient Rome (the Lays
of Ancient Rome). The second poem is about the Battle
of Lake Regillus and
describes the intervention of Castor and Pollux. They are referred to as
the "Great Twin Brethren" in the poem.[49]
Castor and Pollux (elephants) were
killed and eaten during the 1870 Prussian siege of Paris.
There are at least four sets of twin summits named after Castor and
Pollux. In Yellowstone
National Park in Wyoming,
USA, the peaks are found close to the headwaters of the Lamar
River in the Absaroka
Range. Another pair is
located in the Pennine
Alps at the Swiss-Italian
border. A third is in Glacier
National Park of western Canada,
within the Selkirk
mountains. The fourth is in Mount
Aspiring National Park of New
Zealand, named by the explorer Charlie Douglas.
Castor and Pollux are characters that appear in a few of Robert
A. Heinlein's books.
Castor Troy and Pollux Troy are villains (brothers) that appear in the
1997 film Face/Off.
Castor and Pollux are twin cameramen in the final book of Suzanne
Collins' The
Hunger Games trilogy. Like in the myth, Castor was killed and Pollux
survived. Also, in the Percy
Jackson & the Olympians fantasy
series of novels series, Dionysus' twin sons are named Castor and Pollux.
In the fourth book of the series Castor is killed in the battle, thus
following the story of one passing and the other living.
In Persona
3 Pollux (Polydeuces) and
Castor appear as the Personae of Akihiko Sanada and Shinjiro Aragaki
respectively, who are good friends. Shinjiro is killed, following the
myth.
In Homestuck,
a character named Sollux Captor has a name that bears resemblance to
Castor and Pollux. In the story, he is represented by the Gemini (♊)
symbol.
In God
Of War: Ascension, Castor and Pollux appears as tall conjoined
twins. The protagonist, Kratos, must defeat them in battle to
proceed with the game.
In The
Eye of Judgment: Legends Castor
and Pollux are Antagonists that merge to form Dioskuri. They are both
Biolith's and both deal magic damage.
The
Roman Republic was the phase of the
ancient Roman civilization
characterized by a
republican form of government. It began
with the overthrow of the
Roman monarchy, c. 509 BC, and lasted
over 450 years until its subversion, through a series of
civil wars, into the
Principate form of government and the
Imperial period.
The Roman Republic was governed by a
complex constitution, which centered on
the principles of a
separation of powers and
checks and balances. The
evolution of the constitution was
heavily influenced by the struggle between the aristocracy (the
patricians), and other talented Romans
who were not from famous families, the
plebeians. Early in its history, the
republic was controlled by an aristocracy of individuals who could trace
their ancestry back to the early history of the kingdom. Over time, the
laws that allowed these individuals to dominate the government were
repealed, and the result was the emergence of a new aristocracy which
depended on the structure of society, rather than the law, to maintain
its dominance.
During the first two centuries, the Republic saw its
territory expand from central Italy to the entire
Mediterranean world. In the next
century, Rome grew to dominate North Africa, the
Iberian Peninsula, Greece, and what is
now southern France. During the last two centuries of the Roman
Republic, it grew to dominate the rest of modern France, as well as much
of the east. At this point, the
republican political machinery was
replaced with
imperialism.
The precise event which signaled the end of the Roman
Republic and the transition into the
Roman Empire is a matter of
interpretation. Towards the end of the period a selection of Roman
leaders came to so dominate the political arena that they exceeded the
limitations of the Republic as a matter of course. Historians have
variously proposed the appointment of
Julius Caesar as perpetual
dictator in 44 BC, the defeat of
Mark Antony at the
Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the
Roman Senate's grant of extraordinary
powers to
Octavian (Augustus) under the
first settlement in 27 BC, as
candidates for the defining pivotal
event ending the Republic.
Many of Rome's legal and legislative structures can
still be observed throughout Europe and the rest of the world by modern
nation state and
international organizations. The
Romans'
Latin language has influenced grammar
and vocabulary across parts of Europe and the world.
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