Salve Garrule,
Scripsisti :
The story is similiar to others in the Mediterranean, and that is why some people have said that it is probably not true. But it is such a great story!
It is, and the 'divine twins' do indeed seem a universal
topos in all mythologies of peoples with Indo-European origins. Here is an article I found about the subject
on the internet:
The concept of the ‘divine twins’ is another recurrent theme amongst the IE (Indo-European, add. Atticus) mythologies, known to the Indians, Greeks, Mitannians, Armenians, Persians, Romans, Slavs, Balts and possibly the Germans and Kelts. Castor and Polydeuces (collectively called the Dioscuri, ' horseman gods') in Greece, Amphion and Zethus in Thebes, and Romulus and Remus in Rome were all legendary heroes. The Greeks later deified the Dioscuri, while Romulus was deified in the form of god Quirinus or was assimilated with him.
In Thebes the twins Amphion and Zethus are the local legendary twins whose story closely parallels that of Romulus and Remus. Like the latter, they were abandoned at birth and raised by a shepherd. They also avenged themselves by killing the local king, became rulers of his city Thebes, and built its walls.
The similarity with both the Roman twins and the Dioscuri includes the death of Amphion who, like Remus, was the less bold of the two. While Romulus and Remus were not demonstrably equestrians, their equivalents to the east decidedly were. Amphion and Zethus were called the ‘White Horses’, ‘The Horsemen’, or ‘Riders of White Horses’.
Another link between the Greek and Latin versions is with the abduction of the brides of the Dioscuri's cousins, after which Castor was killed by one of the cousins. The two brides were the daughters of Leucippus ('White Horse') and thus called the Leucippidae. According to Pausanius the Leucippidae were the daughters of Apollo, the sun god. This kidnapping may recall the abduction of the Sabine women by Romulus (Remus was already dead).
The association with horses also recalls the Hindic Asvins, whose name in Sanskrit means ‘horses’. (Skt. asvin, acva; Lith. asvin; Avesta aspa, aspahe, aspô; Thracian esvas, ezvas, esb; Gaelic osan, osain; Hittite asuwa, asu, aswu; ‘horse’). The Indian twins also parallel their Greek equivalents in being eternally young and handsome. The Indian myth diverges from their European counterparts in that neither died, and both were imagined as being sky gods and not mortal heroes. They were the sons of the sun or sky, which relation recalls the Dioscuri's father Zeus or Apollo. Nevertheless, the Hindu myth of twins Chyavana and Sukanya involves Indra admitting the Asvins into the Hindu pantheon as major gods. This suggests that they originated as lesser deities, which we also find in Lithuania. It also parallels Zeus' promotion of the Dioscuri to heaven as the constellation Gemini and the Roman deification of Romulus.
In the Baltic the Asviniai were probably the closest surviving representatives of the original twins. As a pair of steeds pulling the solar chariot, they included the essence of the twins in the other pantheons. Their father was Dievas, the sky god of daylight. Still, like the Dioscuri, they took part a mythological wedding of the heavenly family. Even today, one can still find the roofs of Lithuanian houses decorated with zirgeliai (from Lithuanian zirgas and Latvian zirgs, 'horse'). These are pairs of wooden carvings in the form of steeds' heads. These totems of marriage are relicts of the cult of the twins.
The Norse sun maiden Sol also had horses pulling her solar chariot, named Alsvid (All-Swift) and Arvakr (Early Waker). Like their Baltic counterparts they were also never deified, though they may or may not have been twins. Deified versions of the twins include Vali and Vidar, the avenging god-sons of Odin destined to survive Ragnarok and lead the Aesir remnants into a second Golden Age. These were born in the east and were gods of not only the sunrise but of the new year. Vali especially was identified with the new sun following the winter solstice, and his reverence is still echoed today with St. Valentine's day.
The divine twins in Asia rose to such importance that the Indo-Aryan kings of Mitanni invoked them in a treaty with the Hittites. Dated to 1380 BCE, the Mitanni king Matiwaza evoked in order the Indic gods Mitra, Aruna (Varuna), Indara (Indra), and then the Nasatiya, who were their twin horsemen-gods and which name was also an epithet for the Hindu Asvins. This invocation of divine twins may also have been echoed in Sicily, where the local Greeks swore solemn oaths to the Palici (‘The Returners’), divine twins and sons of Zeus. Here, their mother was believed to have born them secretly in a cave from which they emerged. This story may recall that of Castor who, after dying, was granted semi-immortality by Zeus, and so spent half of his days in the underworld, emerging every other day to visit heaven.
One other Greek myth involving twin sons of Zeus were the Arcadian heroes Parrhasius and Lycastus. According to Plutarch, Ares fathered the twins by a local nymph. Fearing her father, she exposed them on a mountain. However, they were suckled by a she-wolf until discovered by a shepherd who reared them as his own. These twins later seized power in Arcadia.
While Plutarch may have adopted some of the legend of Parrhasius and Lycastus from that of Romulus and Remus, it also shows that the eclectic nature of mythology may also have influenced the story of the Roman twins. Another version has Parrhasius without a twin. He was the son of Zeus, or alternatively of Lycaon (‘the wolf’), and father of Arcus (‘the bear’). He founded the city of Parrhasia, while Arcas gave his name to Arcadia.
This assimilation of the divine twins into the local foundation legend may also have been at work in Rome. There, one alternative foundation story has a heroine named Roma or Rhome as amongst the Trojan refugee settlers of Rome, while others have her as of Italian genealogies. Another foundation character, Romis, was a very early king of the Latins who drove out the Etruscan immigrants who had come from Thessaly via Lydia. Both these characters would have predated the legendary eighth-century BCE Romulus and Remus. It could be that the latter were adapted to the foundation legend of Rome. This would have been early, with the tale coming either from the Etruscans during their Orientalizing period, or from the earliest Greeks. This would also have been earlier than their adoption of the myth of Castor and Polydeuces (Latinized as Pollux), who came to Rome in the fifth century BCE from Magna Grecia. Paralleling the Mitanni twins, the common Latin word for 'oath', mecastor (or ecastor) and edepol, were derived from the names of Castor and Pollux. This pair was also particularly popular among the equites.
Tacitus also referenced divine twin sons as being important to the Naharnavali tribe north of the Danube. These they called the Alcis. While the ethnicity of this tribe is uncertain, it does show that this theme was important also in this area at this early date. A La Tene vase from Central Europe depicts a pair of horsemen bonded together by a beam or cord. They thus indicate the divine twins were also important in Gaulish mythology.
The twin horsemen may also be detected in the Saxon leaders Hengst and Horsa. Although not referenced as twins, these legendary brothers, who led the first Germanic colonization in Britain, nevertheless parallel their counterparts across the southern tier of IE peoples. As with Romulus and Remus in Rome and Amphion and Zethus in Thebes, they are mortal heroes associated with the ‘foundation’ legend. In Britain Hengst was the leading character, paralleling Romulus, with his brother playing a secondary role similar to that of Remus. The names of the German pair also draw direct parallels to their southern counterparts. The names of the Saxon heroes both mean ‘horse’(ON hross, OE hors, OHG hros ‘horse’; OE hengest, OHG hengist ‘gelding’; NHG hengst, Dan. and Sw. hingst ‘stallion’).
The Slavs also had their divine twins Lel and Polel, also referenced as Lelum and Polelum. They were supposedly the sons of the Lada (the war god) and the goddess Liada or Leda (love and beauty goddess). Long ago they were equated to the Roman Castor and Pollux, and venerated into the Christian era, though little was recorded about their nature. Most probably they were connected with fertility and abundance, as were the divine twins in general.
The Persian and Armenian twin gods were fertility gods. The Armenian versions Haurot and Maurot were amongst the imports from Iranian mythology, where were found Haurvatat (‘Health’) and Amyrytat (‘Immortality’).
The Celts do not have a demonstrably equivalent pair of divine twins in their myths that have come down to us. However, some stories suggest that this theme may have faded by historic times but was not completely forgotten. For instance, the Irish goddess Macha gave birth to twins after winning a horse race. There is also the tale of Eber and Eremon that recalls the story of Romulus and Remus. These brothers were the only surviving sons of Milesius, a leader who colonized Ireland. Eremon was the first Milesian king of Ireland, and slew his brother in a dispute for the kingship. Eremon thereafter founded the High Kingship at Tara.
More Celtic traces of the 'divine twins' myth may be detected in the story of the Welsh god Lleu Llaw Gyffes, whose twin brother Dylan jumped into the sea at birth (for more parallels see The Prodigal Son Returns and The Amber Connection).
While western 'twin' myths generally share the eastern versions with their equestrian associations, they also have a tendency of having a weaker brother who perishes, and do not have clear solar origins. However, the immortalization and deification of Polydeuces and Romulus and the deaths of Castor and Remus suggest astral associations linked to the planet Mercury as morning and evening stars. Leading the sun over the horizon like a solar steed in the morning, Castor's progressive rise heaven-ward was a metaphor for his ascent to Olympus, while Polydeuces' was a gradual descent into the western ocean and his death.
The IE versions of this myth also seem linked to the Near East, where the twins Shaher and Shalem were the twin Morning and Evening stars in Canaan and no doubt once over a much larger area. They survived in Persia as attendants of the solar god Mithra, depicted with the Morning Star deity holding his torch upwards while his Evening Star twin held his downwards.
At some point, various peoples began to commonly recognize that the Morning and Evening stars were the same and new myths began to be constructed around the single god. Plato recognized Aster, originally only the morning star, as sort of a death-and-resurrection god. These two stars were probably also combined in the myth of Phaeton, a mortal son of the sun who impetuously once rode the solar chariot across the sky but lost control, forcing Zeus to blast him with a thunderbolt. Phaeton went down in a flame, crashing into the 'World River'.
In Canaanite myth Shaher was cast down from heaven after trying to usurp the throne of the sun god. This innocuous story was recycled into Judeo-Christian religion as Lucifer and his host of fallen angels who had been cast out of heaven. This was even though Lucifer was originally no more than the Roman version of the Morning Star ('Light Bringer'). The demonization of Lucifer and the story of his fall from heaven also synchronizes with the story of Ahriman of Persia. This Zoroastrian 'prince of lies' was also defeated and retreated into darkness with his host of demons where he would plot against the 'god of light' Ahura Mazda -- his twin brother.
Vale !
Q. Pomponius Atticus[/url]