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Now Hippocoon had sons, to wit: Dorycleus, Scaeus, Enarophorus, Eutiches, Bucolus, Lycaethus,

Icarius and Periboea, a Naiad nymph,[*](According to the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xv.16, the wife of Icarius was Dorodoche, daughter of Ortilochus; but he adds that according to Pherecydes she was Asterodia, daughter of Eurypylus.) had five sons, Thoas, Damasippus, Imeusimus, Aletes, Perileos,[*](Perileos (Perilaus), son of Icarius, is said to have accused the matricide Orestes at the court of the Areopagus. See Paus. 8.34.4.) and a daughter Penelope, whom Ulysses married.[*](Compare Paus. 3.12.1; Paus. 3.20.10ff. According to the former of these passages, Ulysses won her hand in a footrace. As to races for brides, see Apollod. 3.9.2; Apollod. E.2.5; and note on Apollod. 1.7.8.) Tyndareus and Leda had daughters, to wit, Timandra, whom Echemus married,[*](Compare Paus. 8.5.1.) and Clytaemnestra, whom Agamemnon married; also another daughter Phylonoe, whom Artemis made immortal.

But Zeus in the form of a swan consorted with Leda, and on the same night Tyndareus cohabited with her; and she bore Pollux and Helen to Zeus, and Castor and Clytaemnestra to Tyndareus.[*](Compare Eur. Hel. 16ff.; Lucian, Dial. Deorum xx.14; Lucian, Charidemus 7; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.298; Hyginus, Fab. 77; Hyginus, Ast. ii.8; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 27, 64, 119ff., 163 (First Vatican Mythographer 78, 204; Second Vatican Mythographer 132; Third Vatican Mythographer 3.6). As the fruit of her intercourse with the swan, Leda is said to have laid an egg, which in the time of Pausanias was still to be seen hanging by ribbons from the roof of the temple of Hilaira and Phoebe at Sparta. See Paus. 3.16.1. According to one account (First Vatican Mythographer 78), Castor, Pollux, and Helen all emerged from a single egg; according to another account (First Vatican Mythographer 204), Leda laid two eggs, one of which produced Castor and Pollux, and the other Clytaemnestra and Helen. In heaven the twins Castor and Pollux had each, if we may believe Lucian, half an egg on or above his head in token of the way in which he had been hatched. See Lucian, Dial. Deorum xxvi.1. For the distinction between Pollux and Castor, the former being regarded as the son of Zeus and the latter as the son of Tyndareus, see Pind. N. 10.79(149)ff. According to Hesiod, both Pollux and Castor were sons of Zeus. See Scholiast on Pind. N. 10.80(150).) But some say that Helen

Now the kings of Greece repaired to Sparta to win the hand of Helen. The wooers were these:[*](For another list of the suitors of Helen, see Hyginus, Fab. 81. Hesiod in his Catalogues gave a list of the suitors of Helen, and of this list considerable fragments have been discovered in recent years. They include the names of Menelaus, the two sons of Amphiaraus (Alcmaeon and Amphilochus), Ulysses, Podarces, son of Iphiclus, Protesilaus, son of Actor, <Menestheus>, son of Peteos, Ajax of Salamis, Elephenor, son of Chalcodon, and Idomeneus, son of Minos. Thus the list only partially agrees with that of Apollodorus, for it comprises the names of Podarces and Idomeneus, which are omitted by Apollodorus, who also mentions only one son of Amphiaraus, namely Amphilochus. Hyginus includes Idomeneus, but not Podarces, nor the sons of Amphiaraus. In these recently discovered fragments Hesiod does not confine himself to a bare list of names; he contrives to hit off the different characters of the suitors by describing the different manners of their wooing. Thus the canny and thrifty Ulysses brought no wedding presents, because he was quite sure he had no chance of winning the lady. On the other hand, the bold Ajax was extremely liberal with his offer of other people's property; he promised to give magnificent presents in the shape of sheep and oxen which he proposed to lift from the neighbouring coasts and islands. Idomeneus sent nobody to woo the lady, but came himself, trusting apparently to the strength of his personal attractions to win her heart and carry her home with him a blooming bride. See Griechische Dichterfragmente, i., Epische und elegische Fragmente, bearbeitet von W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Berlin, 1907), pp. 28ff. (Berliner Klassikertexte 1); Hes. Frag. 68.)— Ulysses, son of Laertes; Diomedes, son of Tydeus; Antilochus, son of Nestor; Agapenor, son of Ancaeus; Sthenelus, son of Capaneus; Amphimachus, son of Cteatus; Thalpius, son of Eurytus; Meges, son of Phyleus; Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus; Menestheus, son of Peteos; Schedius and Epistrophus, sons of Iphitus; Polyxenus, son of Agasthenes; Peneleos, son of Hippalcimus; Leitus, son of Alector; Ajax, son of Oileus; Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares; Elephenor, son of Chalcodon; Eumelus, son of Admetus; Polypoetes, son of Perithous; Leonteus, son of Coronus; Podalirius and Machaon, sons of Aesculapius; Philoctetes, son of Poeas; Eurypylus, son of Evaemon; Protesilaus, son of Iphiclus; Menelaus, son of Atreus; Ajax and Teucer, sons of

Seeing the multitude of them, Tyndareus feared that the preference of one might set the others quarrelling; but Ulysses promised that, if he would help him to win the hand of Penelope, he would suggest a way by which there would be no quarrel. And when Tyndareus promised to help him, Ulysses told him to exact an oath from all the suitors that they would defend the favoured bridegroom against any wrong that might be done him in respect of his marriage. On hearing that, Tyndareus put the suitors on their oath,[*](Compare Hesiod, in Epische und elegische Fragmente, ed. W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, p. 33; Hes. Frag. 68.89ff.; Eur. IA 57ff.; Thuc. 1.9; Paus. 3.20.9; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 2.339; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 202. According to Paus. 3.20.9 the suitors took the oath standing on the severed pieces of a horse. As to the custom of standing on the pieces of a sacrificial victim or passing between them at the making of solemn covenants, see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.392ff. ) and while he chose Menelaus to be the bridegroom of Helen, he solicited Icarius to bestow Penelope on Ulysses.

Now Menelaus had by Helen a daughter Hermione and, according to some, a son Nicostratus;[*](Homer definitely affirms (Hom. Od. 4.12-14; compare Hom. Il. 3.174ff.) that Helen had only one child, her daughter Hermione. But according to Hesiod, whose verses are quoted by the Scholiast on Soph. El. 539, Helen afterwards bore a son Nicostratus to Menelaus. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Od. iv.11, who tells us further that according to more recent writers Helen had a son Corythus or Helenus by Alexander (Paris). According to Dictys Cretensis v.5, Helen had three sons by Alexander, namely, Bunomus, Corythus, and Idaeus, who were accidentally killed at Troy through the collapse of a vaulted roof. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.175, says that the Lacedaemonians worshipped two sons of Helen, to wit, Nicostratus and Aethiolas. He further mentions, on the authority of Ariaethus, that Helen had by Menelaus a son Maraphius, from whom the Persian family of the Maraphions was descended. See Dindorf's edition of the Scholiast on the Iliad vol. i. pp. 147ff., vol. iii. p. 171. According to one account, Helen had a daughter by Theseus before she was married to Menelaus; this daughter was Iphigenia; Helen entrusted her to her sister Clytaemnestra, who reared the child and passed her off on her husband Agamemnon as her own offspring. This account of the parentage of Iphigenia was supported by the authority of Stesichorus and other poets. See Paus. 2.22.6ff.; Ant. Lib. 27. Sophocles represents Menelaus as having two children before he sailed for Troy (Soph. Elec. 539ff.).) and by a female slave Pieris, an Aetolian,

Of the sons born to Leda Castor practised the art of war, and Pollux the art of boxing;[*](Compare Hom. Il. 3.237; Hom. Od. 11.300.) and on account of their manliness they were both called Dioscuri.[*](That is, “striplings of Zeus.”) And wishing to marry the daughters of Leucippus, they carried them off from Messene and wedded them;[*](The usual tradition seems to have been that Idas and Lynceus, the sons of Aphareus, were engaged to be married to the daughters of Leucippus, who were their cousins, since Aphareus and Leucippus were brothers (see above, Apollod. 3.10.3). They invited to their wedding Castor and Pollux, who were cousins both to the bridegrooms and the brides, since Tyndareus, the human father of Castor and Pollux (see above, Apollod. 3.10.7), was a brother of Aphareus and Leucippus (see above, Apollod. 3.10.3). But at the wedding Castor and Pollux carried off the brides, and being pursued by the bridegrooms, Idas and Lynceus, they turned on their pursuers. In the fight which ensued, Castor and Lynceus were slain, and Idas was killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt. See Theocritus xxii.137ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.243; Scholiast on Pind. N. 10.60(112); Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 546; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.686ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 80; Ovid, Fasti v.699ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 27 (First Vatican Mythographer 77). According to Apollodorus, however, the fight between the cousins was occasioned by a quarrel arising over the division of some cattle which they had lifted from Arcadia in a joint raid. This seems to have been the version of the story which Pindar followed; for in his description of the fatal affray between the cousins (Pind. N. 10.60(112)ff.) he speaks only of anger about cattle as the motive that led Idas to attack Castor. The rape of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux was a favourite subject in art. See Paus. 1.18.1; Paus. 3.17.3; Paus. 3.18.11; Paus. 4.31.9. The names of the damsels, as we learn from Apollodorus, were Phoebe and Hilaira. Compare Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἄφιδνα ; Prop. i.2.15ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 80. At Sparta they had a sanctuary, in which young maidens officiated as priestesses and were called Leucippides after the goddesses. See Paus. 3.16.1. From an obscure gloss of Hesychius, s.v. πωλία , we may perhaps infer that these maiden priestesses, like the goddesses, were two in number, and that they were called “the colts of the Leucippides.” Further, since the name of Leucippus, the legendary father of the goddesses, means simply “White Horse,” it is tempting to suppose that the Leucippides, like their priestesses, were spoken of and perhaps conceived as white horses. More than that, Castor and Pollux, who carried off these white-horse maidens, if we may call them so, were not only constantly associated with horses, but were themselves called White Horses (λευκόπωλοι) by Pind. P. 1.66(126) and “White Colts of Zeus” by Euripides in a fragment of his lost play the Antiope. See S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte (Leipsig, 1893), pp. 331ff.; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.442. These coincidences can hardly be accidental. They point to the worship of a pair of brother deities conceived as white horses, and married to a pair of sister deities conceived as white mares, who were served by a pair of maiden priestesses called White Colts, assisted apparently by a boy priest or priests; for a Laconian inscription describes a certain youthful Marcus Aurelius Zeuxippus as “priest of the Leucippides and neatherd (? βουαγόρ) of the Tyndarids,” that is, of Castor and Pollux. See P. Cauer, Delectus Inscriptionum Graecarum propter dialectum memorabilium, p. 17, No. 36; H. Collitz und F. Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen DialektInschriften, iii.2, pp. 40ff., No. 4499.) and Pollux had Mnesileus by Phoebe, and