Member-only story
The Divine Twins in Indo-European Religion
Horses, Chariot, the Sun, Dawn and the Sky Father: From Rome to India a Consistent Myth Has a Proto-Indo-European Origin
Most of the old Pagan religions in Europe were part of an original source: Proto-Indo-European religion. We can discover how the primordial religion looked like by comparing myths of different cultures and ethnic groups. Through this method, scholars have been able to reconstruct the entire pantheon of the primeval gods and goddesses.
One of the central figures in the Indo-European pantheon is the Sky Father. He is also known by his reconstructed Proto-Indo-European term, *Dyeus. The patriarch of the gods has an intricate web of family relatives — as it is well evinced, for example, through both Vedic and Greek mythologies. Among these relatives, the sons of *Dyeus are probably the most relevant ones. They are the divine Twins.
There is an unusual academic consensus around the ancient Indo-European origins of the divine Twins. It is considered one of the few original myths within the primordial Proto-Indo-European pantheon. We can find the same divine Twin figures in Greek, Vedic, Roman and Baltic mythology. They are the original “Sons of God.”
The Greek Twins are called the Dioskouroi, which literally means “the Sons of Zeus.” Sometimes, they are also called the Tyndariai. The reason for this is that the Twins may have had different fathers. One twin, Castor, has a mortal father — the king Tyndareus, who is also the stepfather of the famous Helen of Troy. The other twin, Polydeuces, is the son of Zeus, after he impregnated the mother, Leda, disguised as a swan. The Twins are always represented as young men wearing a peculiar egg-shaped hat, the pillos. Castor and Polydeuces are associated with horses. This is an essential part of all the known depictions of the Twins. In one case, Castor is addressed with the epithet Ἱππόδαμος, “horse-taming.” In the Homeric hymns, the Dioskouroi are “riders on swift steeds.” Indeed, the Twins always ride white horses and the Greek poet Pindar talks about “gold-charioted Castor.”
The divine Twins are youthful, and associated with horses and a golden chariot.
