Castor and Pollux horse breaker and the boxer / Polydeuces, my brothers" ..." – Helen, "Iliad" 3.253–255), but in the "Odyssey" they are treated as alive even though "the corn-bearing earth holds them". The author describes them as "having honour equal to gods", living on alternate days because of the intervention of Zeus. In both the "Odyssey" and in Hesiod, they are described as the sons of Tyndareus and Leda. In Pindar, Pollux is the son of Zeus while Castor is the son of the mortal Tyndareus. The theme of ambiguous parentage is not unique to Castor and Pollux; similar characterisations appear in
Deception of Zeus anthropomorphism", and linked it to the opening of the Babylonian "Enuma Elish" where Apsu and Tiamat, respectively the fresh and salt waters, are the primordial couple who "were mixing their waters." Like Tethys and Oceanus they were superseded by a later generation of gods. Tethys does not otherwise appear in early Greek myth and she had no established cult. Deception of Zeus The section of the "Iliad" that ancient editors called the Dios apate (the "Deception of Zeus") stands apart from the remainder of Book XIV. In this episode, Hera makes an excuse to leave her divine husband Zeus; in