From Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend, by Professor H. Steuding, Translated from the German and edited by Lionel D. Barnett. The Temple Primers, London: J. M. Dent; 1901; p. 79.
[79]Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend
GREEK MYTHOLOGY
Heroic Poetry
IV. Lakonian Legends. § 134. The most important place in Lakonia before the Dorian migration was Amyklai, a chief seat of the worship of Apollon, south of Sparta. Here or in Sparta Tyndareos and his wife Leda ruled. After Zeus, who had a seat upon the neighbouring mountain-range of Taygetos, had come into her arms in the form of a swan, Leda became mother of the Dioskoroi, or ‘sons of Zeus,’ — Polydeukes (the Latin Pollux) and Kastor, — as well as of Helena. To Tyndareos she bore Klytaimestra; the mortal Kastor also was regarded later as his son.
§ 135. The Dioskoroi have their chief seat in Lakonia, Messenia, and Argos; later however their worship spread over the whole Greek world, so that they were invoked everywhere as saviours in peril (Σωτῆρες) or as rulers (Ἄνακες), especially in battle and storm by sea. Sometimes too their sister Helena, who in consequence perhaps of her disastrous influence on Troy and the Greek nation was at last made the daughter of avenging Nemesis, was worshipped by their side as a guardian goddess. Both Dioskoroi ride upon white horses, but Polydeukes is also accounted a mighty boxer. After the death of Kastor, who was slain by the Messenian hero Idas, Polydeukes to avoid separation from his brother prayed Zeus that they might together spend for ever alternate days in the lower world and in Olympos
In art the Dioskoroi appear as youthful horsemen, clad only in the chlamys and armed with the lance. In view of their heroic nature, the snake belongs to them as an attribute; later however they are characterised by the pointed egg-shaped cap (πῖλος), or by the addition of two stars.
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