The Tinas Cliniar: Dioscuri of the Etruscans
These bronze handles have the distinctive shape associated with a type of krater made in Vulci and exported to Etruscan settlements as far away as Spina in Northern Italy. The youths wearing winged boots and holding the bridles of their horses are almost certainly the twin gods, Castur and Pultuce (Roman: Castor and Pollux), the sons of Zeus. The two are known in Etruscan as Tinas Cliniar and as the Roman Dioscuri although in Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini (literally "twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarid. In Homer's Iliad, Castor, the horse breaker, and Polydeuces, the boxer, are brothers to Helen of Troy and are both mortals who have died. ("... there are two commanders I do not see, / Castor the horse breaker and the boxer / Polydeuces, my brothers ...") – Helen, Iliad 3.253–255 But, as described by Pindar, the two, born of the same mother, were only half-brothers, however. Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king ...