[404] Diodôr. ix. 63. Herod. iv. 73. Δεκελέων δὲ τῶν τότε ἐργασαμένων ἔργον χρήσιμον ἐς τὸν πάντα χρόνον, ὡς αὐτοὶ Ἀθηναῖοι λέγουσι. According to other authors, it was Akadêmus who made the revelation, and the spot called Akadêmia, near Athens, which the Lacedæmônians spared in consideration of this service (Plutarch, Thêseus, 31, 32, 33, where he gives several different versions of this tale by Attic writers, framed with the view of exonerating Thêseus). The recovery of Helen and the captivity of Æthra were represented on the ancient chest of Kypselus, with the following curious inscription:
Τυνδαρίδα Ἑλέναν φέρετον, Αἴθραν δ᾽ Ἀθέναθεν Ἕλκετον.
The fatal combat between Kastôr and Polydeukês on the one side, and Idas and Lynkeus on the other, for the possession of the daughters of Leukippus, was celebrated by more than one ancient poet, and forms the subject of one of the yet remaining Idylls of Theocritus. Leukippus had formally betrothed his daughters to Idas and Lynkeus; but the Tyndarids, becoming enamored of them, outbid their rivals in the value of the customary nuptial gifts, persuaded the father to violate his promise, and carried off Phoebê and Ilaëira as their brides. Idas and Lynkeus pursued them and remonstrated against the injustice: according to Theocritus, this was the cause of the combat. But there was another tale, which seems the older, and which assigns a different cause to the quarrel. The four had jointly made a predatory incursion into Arcadia, and had driven off some cattle, but did not agree about the partition of the booty—Idas carried off into Messênia a portion of it which the Tyndarids claimed as their own. To revenge and reimburse themselves, the Tyndarids invaded Messênia, placing themselves in ambush in the hollow of an ancient oak. But Lynkeus, endued with preternatural powers of vision, mounted to the top of Taygetus, from whence, as he could see over the whole Peleponnêsus, he detected them in their chosen place of concealment. Such was the narrative of the ancient Cyprian Verses. Kastôr perished by the hand of Idas, Lynkeus by that of Pollux. Idas, seizing a stone pillar from the tomb of his father Aphareus, hurled it at Pollux, knocked him down and stunned him; but Zeus, interposing at the critical moment for the protection of his son, killed Idas with a thunderbolt. Zeus would have conferred upon Pollux the gift of immortality, but the latter could not endure existence without his brother: he entreated permission to share the gift with Kastôr, and both were accordingly permitted to live, but only on every other day.[405]