Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

764 The Dioskouroi as Stars

Ye who dwell in the halls of the Heavenly Home,

Be nigh her, safe guiding
Helen where seas heave, surges comb,
As o'er waves green-g'limmering, crested with foam,

Her galley is riding1. ,

Similarly in Euripides' Elektra (413 B.C.) the women of Argos
salute Klytaimestra as follows:

Hail, Queen of the Argive land !

All hail, O Tyndareus' daughter !
Hail, sister of Zeus' sons, heroes twain
In the glittering heavens mid stars who stand,
And their proud right this, to deliver from bane

Men tossed on the storm-vext water2.

In the Orestes (408 B.C.) Helene shares their prerogative :

For, as Zeus' daughter, deathless must she live,
And shall by Kastor and Polydeukes sit
In folds of air, the mariners' saviour she3.

iii. The Dioskouroi with Stars in Hellenistic Art.

The art-type of the Dioskouroi, with their heads surmounted
by a couple of stars, though common enough in Hellenistic times
(fig. 554)4, especially on coins (fig. 5 5 5)5, has not as yet been dis-
covered on monuments of the strictly Hellenic period6. Diodoros,
who drew his information from the Argonautika or Argonautai of

1 Eur. Hel. 1495 ff. trans. A. S. Way. The poet adds uavrais evaeis ave/xoov \ ire/x-
Trovres Aiodev irvoas, which marks their connexion with Zeus.

2 Eur. El. 988 ff. trans. A. S. Way. Cp. Eur. ti. i24if., 1347 ff., Hel. 1633 E.,frag.
adesp. 133 Bergk4 ( = Pind. frag. 140° Schroeder) ap.- Plout. non posse suav. vivi sec.
Epic. 23, de def. or. 30.

:! Eur. Or. 1635 ff. trans. A. S. Way. Cp. Eur. ib, 1683 ff., Isokr. Helene 61.

4 Fig. 554 a, b representing a pair of bronze statuettes (heights 5^$ and 5^ inches) at
Arolsen (R. Gaedechens Die Antiken des Fiirstlich Waldeckischen Museums zu Arolsen
Arolsen 1862 nos. 173, 174) is drawn from casts in the Cambridge collection. The
lowered hands hold sheathed swords; the raised arms doubtless leant upon lances. The
right foot of fig. 554 b is restored. For variations on the same theme see e.g. Reinach
Rep. Stat. i. 487 no. 2, ii. 109 nos. 3, 6, 7, 10, iv. 59 no. 5, id. Rep. Reliefs ii. 344 no. 1,
iii. 248 no. 5. Cp. supra p. 35 fig. 8.

5 The type dates from the third century B.C. (A. Furtwangler in Roscher Lex.
Myth. i. 11 76 f.). I figure by way of example a silver coin of the Bruttii after Garrucci
Mon. It. ant. p. 183 pi. 124, 12.

6 A. Furtwangler he. cit. i. ii7if. This makes it doubtful whether we can admit
H. Pomtow's surmise that the statues of the Dioskouroi at Delphoi by Antiphanes of
Argos (soon after 405 B.C.) had stars on their heads {supra p. 762).

Polyain. 2. 31. 4 states that Aristomenes the Messenian and a friend once tricked the
Lacedaemonians by appearing suddenly in the guise of the Dioskouroi, mounted on white
horses and wearing golden stars on their heads (cp. 1. 41. 1, 6. 1. 3, Frontin. strat. 1. 11,
8. 9, cited by K. Jaisle op. cit. p. 16 n. 6). But little confidence can be placed in the
historical accuracy of this trick, and none in its details.