The Dioscuri

In Greek mythology, Leda, daughter of Thestius (king of Aetolia), gave birth to several children. She had the mortals Castor and Clytemnestra with her husband Tyndareus (king of Sparta), and the demigods Pollux and Helen with Zeus. The two brothers Castor and Pollux are called the Dioscuri. Invited to their cousins' wedding, they fell for their charm and abducted them from their fiancés. Furious, one of the fiancés killed Castor. Desperate at the disappearance of his half-brother, Pollux begged his father Zeus to reunite them and obtained the right for them to spend part of the year together in the Underworld and the other in Olympus, alternately sharing immortality. They were then transformed into stars and placed in the constellation Gemini.

Tetradrachm coin depicting the Dioscuri on the left. Stars on the upper part of the faces. Photo: Wikimedia Commons license.

The Romans paid them a special cult; they confused them with the local gods Pilumnus and Picumnus and often had them appear at the head of the Roman cavalry, notably during the Battle of Lake Regillus in 499 B.C.

Their traditional iconography shows them with young, athletic, nude bodies, with purple cloaks on their shoulders. A four-pointed star symbol surrounded by staggered dots is often seen, referring to their shared immortality (Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend - Nancy Thomson de Grummond - University of Pennsylvania – 2006).