Note 409 — Chapter VIII · LACONIAN AND MESSENIAN GENEALOGIES.

Apollod. i. 7, 9. Pausan. iv. 2, 5. Apollônius Rhodius describes Idas as full of boast and self-confidence, heedless of the necessity of divine aid. Probably this was the character of the brothers in the old legend, as the enemies of the Dioskuri.

The wrath of the Dioskuri against Messênia was treated, even in the historical times, as the grand cause of the subjection of the Messênians by the Spartans: that wrath had been appeased at the time when Epameinondas reconstituted Messênê (Pausan. iv. 27, 1).