Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/202

 170 HISTORY OF GREECE. was recovered : the brothers in evacuating Attica, carried awaj into captivity JEthra, the mother of Theseus. In after-days, when Kastor and Pollux, under the title of the Dioskuri, had come to be worshipped as powerful gods, and when the Athenians were greatly ashamed of this act of Theseus the revelation made by Dekelus was considered as entitling him to the lasting gratitude of his country, as well as to the favorable remembrance of the Lacedaemonians, who maintained the Dekeleians in the constant enjoyment of certain honorary privileges at Sparta, 1 and even spared that deme in all their invasions of Attica. Nor is it improbable that the existence of this legend had some weight in determining the Lacedaemonians to select Dekelia as the place of their occupation during the Peleponnesian war. The fatal combat between Kastor and Polydeukes 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 cus- tomary nuptial gifts, persuaded the father to violate his promise, and carried off Phoebe and Ilaeira 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 Messenia a portion of it which the Tyndarids claimed as 1 Diodor. iv. 63. Herod, iv. 73. Ae/ce/let>v 6e rtiv TOTE tpyaaafievuv ep- yov xpfoipov ? rbv TruvTa xpovov, uf aiirol 'Adrivaloi "heyovoi. According to other authors, it was Akademus who made the revelation, and the spot called Akademia, near Athens, which the Lacedaemonians spared in con- sideration of this service (Plutarch, The'sens, 31, 32, 33, where he gives several different versions of this tale by Attic writers, framed with the view of exonerating Theseus). The recovery of Helen and the captivity of JEthra were represented on the ancient chest of Kypselus, with the following cnrioui inscription : Tvvdaptda ' EAt'vnv tyiperov, A.l'&pav 6' 'Atfe'vatffv Pausan. v. 19 1