Editing Castor and Pollux (section)

==Iconography==
[[File:Antiochos VI with Dioscuri.jpg|thumb|Coin of [[Antiochus VI]] with Dioskouroi]]
Castor and Pollux are consistently associated with horses in art and literature. They are widely depicted as helmeted horsemen carrying spears.<ref name="EB" /> The Pseudo-[[Oppian]] manuscript depicts the brothers hunting, both on horseback and on foot.<ref name="Kazhdan">{{Citation | first1 = Alexander | last1 = Kazhdan | first2 = Alice-Mary | last2 = Talbot | author2-link=Alice-Mary Talbot |contribution = Dioskouroi | title = The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium | editor-first = Alexander P | editor-last = Kazhdan | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 1991}}.</ref>

[[File:Castor or Pollux, probably Italy, 2nd century CE - Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - DSC08246.JPG|thumb|upright|One of the twins wearing the egg-shaped cap, here marked with a celestial symbol (2nd century CE)]]
On [[votive]] reliefs they are depicted with a variety of symbols representing the concept of twinhood, such as the ''dokana'' (δόκανα – two upright pieces of wood connected by two cross-beams), a pair of [[amphora]]e, a pair of shields, or a pair of snakes. They are also often shown wearing felt caps, sometimes with stars above.  They are depicted on [[metope (architecture)|metopes]] (an element of a Doric frieze) from [[Delphi]] showing them on the voyage of the ''Argo'' (Ἀργώ) and rustling cattle with Idas. [[Pottery of ancient Greece|Greek vases]] regularly show them capturing Phoebe and Hilaeira, as [[Argonauts]], as well as in religious ceremonies and at the delivery to [[Leda (mythology)|Leda]] of the egg containing Helen.<ref name="Parker" /> They can be recognized in some vase-paintings by the [[Pileus (hat)|skull-cap]] they wear, the ''pilos'' (πῖλος), which was already explained in antiquity as the remnants of the egg from which they hatched.{{Refn |{{Citation | author-link = Scholium| last = Scholiast | title = [[Lycophron]]}}.{{Sfn | Kerényi | 1959 | p = 107 note 584}}}}

They were described by [[Dares Phrygius]] as "blond haired, large eyed, fair complexioned, and well-built with trim bodies".<ref>Dares of Phrygia. ''History of the Fall of Troy 12. A'' short prose work which purports to be a first hand account of the Trojan War by Dares, a Trojan priest of Hephaestus in the ''Iliad''.</ref>

===Dokana===
Dokana were ancient symbolical representation of the Dioscuri. It consisted of two upright beams with others laid across them transversely. The Dioscuri were worshipped as gods of war, and their images accompanied the Spartan kings whenever they took the field against an enemy. But when in the year 504 B.C. the two kings, during their invasion of Attica, failed in their undertaking on account of their secret enmity towards each other, it was decreed at Sparta, that in future only one king should command the army, and in consequence should only be accompanied by one of the images of the Dioscuri. It is not improbable that these images, accompanying the kings into the field, were the ancient δόκανα, which were now disjointed, so that one-half of the symbol remained at Sparta, while the other was taken into the field by one of the kings.<ref name="A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities">[https://archive.org/details/adictionarygree05smitgoog/page/418/mode/2up A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Dokana]</ref>

The name δόκανα seems that it comes from δοκός which meant beam, but [[Suda]] and the [[Etymologicum Magnum]] state that δόκανα was the name of the graves of the Dioscuri at Sparta, and derived from the verb δέχομαι.<ref name="A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities"/>