In one of the chapters of her study of the Shahnameh<\/em>, Holly, the scholarly mentor who has shown me more vibrantly than anyone else how to infuse even greater vitality into the already lively corpus of Classical Persian literature by approaching it from a comparative perspective, investigates by means of Indo-European methodology the dynamics that characterize the relationship between Lohrasp and his son Goshtasp in Ferdowsi\u2019s poem. Her analysis emphasizes the hereditary component of the narratives concerning this pair and reveals some of the substantial affinities that they possess with certain other mythical dyads, typically brotherly twins, whose composition has likewise been impacted by traditions of Indo-European ancestry, including the Dioskouroi.[1]<\/a> It is in the spirit of Holly\u2019s admirable insights that this little offering of mine endeavors make a modest additional advance in the examination of the extent to which the family of Lohrasp and the Dioskouroi share a common genealogy.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n One of the narratives in which both Goshtasp and his brother Zarir, with whose Avestan onomastic and behavioral equivalent Zairivairi Goshtasp\u2019s Avestan correspondent Vishtaspa is already associated, are involved is that of Goshtasp\u2019s marriage to Nahid, the daughter of the Byzantine emperor, and of the preceding and subsequent events that lead to and develop after the wedding of Goshtasp and Nahid. This wedding is remarkable on account of the fact that Nahid is granted by her father the freedom to choose her own husband, whose success she communicates by bestowing a garland of flowers on him.<\/p>\n It is no coincidence that other epic traditions owing something to Indo-European lore also feature weddings of the exceptional bridal self-choice variety.[3]<\/a> So in the Mahabharata<\/em>, the Sanskrit textual sister of the Shahnameh <\/em>in many respects, several princesses are given paternal permission select their own husbands, and in the myth of the Trojan War, the Greek sibling of the parallel series of events that unfold over the course of the Shahnameh <\/em>and the Mahabharata<\/em>, the Spartan king Tyndareus allows his daughter Helen, sister of the aforementioned Dioskouroi, to do the same; like Nahid, she does so by decorating Menelaus with a garland.[4]<\/a> In fact Stephanie Jamison has shown in great detail that the matrimonial mythologies of multiple women who figure in the tale of Troy have been formulated with an eye to Indo-European storytelling and marital law,[5]<\/a> a pattern that lends further support to the tactic of inspecting any of the individual instances in question through an Indo-European lens.<\/p>\n One of the princesses of the Mahabharata <\/em>to obtain her husband by means of a svayamvara<\/em>, the Sanskrit term for a bridal self-choice, is Draupadi, who chooses Arjuna, one of the five semi-divine Pandava brothers, but who on account of a flippant joke and a careless reaction to that jest which, although excusable, results in drastic polyandrous consequences, ends up with all five of the Pandavas as simultaneous husbands.[6]<\/a> Two of the additional four husbands whom Draupadi accidentally gains are the twin brothers Nakula and Sahadeva, the sons and demigod equivalents of their two divine fathers, the twin Ashvins, who are none other than the Indic congeners of the similarly semi-divine twin Dioskouroi and of both the father-son Dioscuric pair Lohrasp and Goshtasp studied by Holly and, as this essay shall aim to further demonstrate, of Lohrasp\u2019s two sons Goshtasp and Zarir.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n Although the wedlock of Draupadi with Nakula and Sahadeva is accidental as far as the synchronic logic of the Mahabharata<\/em> is concerned, their union is entirely deliberate from a diachronic perspective, for it resonates with, indeed quasi-reenacts the consonantly bigamous marriage of the goddess Surya, Draupadi\u2019s divine counterpart, to Nakula and Sahadeva\u2019s fathers the Ashvins, which the Rig Veda <\/em>indicates was also the result of a svayamvara<\/em>.[8]<\/a> Indic, Iranian and Greek myth, therefore, have all three of them inherited variations on a triad consisting of two brothers and a female figure who selects her own husband(s).[9]<\/a><\/p>\n The correspondences between the family of Lohrasp, the Dioskouroi and both the Ashvins and their twin sons are many, detailed and deeply synthetic. One general but pervasive aspect shared by all of these figures is a persistent association with horses.[10]<\/a> In the case of Lohr-asp<\/em>, Gosht-asp<\/em> and the Ashv<\/em>-ins, this association manifests itself, inter alia<\/em>, in the linguistic composition of their names, the terminal segment of the names of both of the Iranian characters and the initial segment of the collective name for the Indic pair being the inherited word for this animal. In addition to these etymological manifestations of their equine inclinations, horses routinely figure in the mythology of the Ashvins and their sons and that of the Dioskouroi,[11]<\/a> Goshtasp is a skilled polo player, and the injured legs of one of the horses of Vishtaspa, Goshtasp\u2019s already mentioned Avestan homologue, is healed by Zoroaster in a manner reminiscent of Wodan\u2019s healing of the leg of Balder\u2019s horse in the Meresburg Charms, the content and phraseology of which text exhibits an inherited tradition of formular incantation that is also intoned in the Atharva Veda<\/em>,[12]<\/a> where it occurs in combination with reference to an Rbhu; elsewhere, the Rbhus are similarly said to be not healers of horses but rather fabricators of them, a creative act that I shall resume below.<\/p>\n So the comparison is actually more precise than just two brothers and a female figure who selects her own husband(s): the brothers in question are consistently hippophilic. More to the point, as far as this essay is concerned, these brothers are consistently attached to the bridal self-choices of the matching females to whom they are connected: Zarir plays a role in the prelude to and aftermath of his brother Goshtasp\u2019s marriage to Nahid, Surya chooses the Ashvins as her two husbands and Draupadi gets the Ashvins\u2019 sons Nakula and Sahadeva as two of hers, and the Dioskouroi are vigorously involved in Helen\u2019s Spartan wedding, at which she selects Menelaus but during which the Dioskouroi aggressively advise her to select another suitor, the specifics of which scenario might be hereditary, in light of the fact that the Ashvins, apparently before Surya chose them as her husbands and in connection with that decision of hers or according to an alternate tradition of Surya\u2019s spousal mythology, were tasked with the role of wooing Surya on behalf of the god Soma.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n The fact that the pairs of males linked to the females under scrutiny are characteristically combined with horses results in an indirect concatenation between this animal and the bridal self-choices of these females. The females themselves, moreover, are sometimes directly connected to horses, as well as indirectly connected to them in ways that go beyond their relationships to our dyads of equine males. Helen, for instance, is brought into (in)famous juxtaposition with the Trojan Horse in the narrative of her ritualesque triple circumambulation of it, in which moment she knew or at least wondered about the Greek soldiers concealed inside of it and either sought to conceal their presence (the account of the ghost of Deiphobus and Helen\u2019s autobiography) or attempted to expose them by imitating the voices of Greek warriors\u2019 wives (Menelaus\u2019 passive-aggressively retaliatory version).[14]<\/a><\/p>\n My understanding that this episode is relevant to the study of the common heritage of Helen and Nahid\u2019s bridal self-choices is supported by the fact that several scholars of comparative Indo-European mythology have perceived hereditary elements in the mythology of the Trojan horse. Fran\u00e7oise Bader has observed that \u1f31\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, the compound with which Lykophron describes Epeios, the architect of the Trojan Horse, in whose name Bruce Lincoln perceives the reflection of an aspect of Indo-European equine ideology,[15]<\/a> is a univerbated etymological match for the syntagms that narrate the event of the previously referenced Vedic Rbhus\u2019 creation of one and then two horses (\u00e1\u015bvam atak\u1e63ata<\/em>; tatak\u1e63\u00far\u2026\u00e1\u015bv\u0101<\/em>).[16]<\/a><\/p>\n Furthermore, there has been an effort to conceive of the Trojan Horse, which is, after all, claimed to be an offering from the Greeks to Athena, and which is struck with a spear by the priest Laocoon (albeit without ritual motivation according to the synchronic shape of the narrative), as a sort of sacrificial victim; Timaeus was already thinking along these lines in the 3rd<\/sup> century B.C. when he connected the Trojan Horse with the Roman horse sacrifice of the Equus October, in which the victim was likewise speared.[17]<\/a> The Equus October has been argued by modern scholars of the history of religion to constitute the Roman reflex of an Indo-European tradition of horse sacrifice reflected most amply in the Indic Ashvamedha, a lengthy and elaborate ritual demonstration of kingly sovereignty culminating in the slaughter of a horse in which the queen played a significant role.[18]<\/a> Horse sacrifice of any kind, regal or otherwise, is rare in ancient Greece, but some residue of this royal ritual and its salient reginal feature arguably resides in Helen\u2019s curious interactions with the Trojan Horse, which might be said to have been feigned by the Greeks to function in part as an acknowledgement of Trojan political supremacy.[19]<\/a><\/p>\n If a sacrificial substratum to Helen\u2019s moment with the Trojan Horse is arguable, a conspicuous event attached to her Spartan wedding explicitly constitutes a hippomorphic ritual. Apparently fearing conflict among the many suitors for his daughter, Tyndareus required all of those who sought to be considered for marriage to Helen to swear an oath to lend their aid to the man whom Helen would select in the event that his union with Helen was ever jeopardized. Prior to the swearing of the oath, Tyndareus conducted a horse sacrifice and had the suitors each stand on a segment of the slaughtered horse while they swore the oath.[20]<\/a><\/p>\n Although Lysistrata\u2019s companions propose a similar sacrifice, this might be just an Aristophanic joke;[21]<\/a> in any event, Tyndareus\u2019 ritual has the air of something special about it. The myth of the so-called Oath of Tyndareus might therefore have been sculpted with reference to the tradition of sovereign horse sacrifice that the Greeks would have inherited from their cultural ancestors. That Tyndareus\u2019 horse sacrifice is essentially associated with the promise to protect the marriage of the future king of Sparta, the ultimate goal of which could be said to be the maintenance of the stability of his rule, and the fact that this sacrifice is also essentially linked to the prospective monarch\u2019s wedding of the future queen of Sparta yields a doubly iterated combination of elements reminiscent of those of the Ashvamedha, in which the queen is similarly a major player in the consolidation of the king\u2019s sovereignty as achieved by means of the ritual slaughter of a horse.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n Nothing quite so arrestingly equine figures in the wedding of Nahid and Goshtasp, but remember that the terminal segment of the latter\u2019s name is the Iranian reflex of the inherited horse word, and Goshtasp\u2019s polo abilities emerge during this episode. As we have seen to be the case with our Greek comparandum, moreover, this bride herself is also indirectly linked to this animal beyond her imminent union with her horsey bridegroom. Although Goshtasp calls his wife Katayun, Ferdowsi tells us that her proper name was Nahid, the Classical Persian equivalent of the name of the Avestan goddess Anahita.[23]<\/a> In some respects, Anahita\u2019s Greek counterpart is Artemis,[24]<\/a> but as we have seen, when it comes to the marital mythology of Anahita\u2019s Classical Persian equivalent, we are rather dealing with a narrative that is a match for the biography of Helen, which should raise eyebrows, given the instances in which Artemis and Helen intersect. The Aban Yasht<\/em> describes Anahita riding in a horse-drawn chariot and tells us that Kaui Usan, desirous of sovereign power, sacrificed to her a hundred stallions, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand sheep.[25]<\/a><\/p>\n When we consider Anahita\u2019s connection to horses in general and to an animal sacrifice including equine victims that aims to effect the receipt of sovereignty in particular, it becomes clear that the name of Goshtasp\u2019s wife is profoundly meaningful.[26]<\/a> Although Nahid herself is never brought into direct juxtaposition with the animal, the fact that the Proto-Iranian precursor of both Nahid and Anahita must have been substantially joined to horses and specifically to sacrificial horses almost allows us to imagine lurking loosely in the background of the nuptials of Goshtasp and Nahid a ghostly and slightly whimsical horse sacrifice that echoes the soberingly concrete one enacted by Helen\u2019s father and suitors, including the man who is not only about to become a groom in the matrimonial sense of the word, but who in the context of the oath, to try for a dark joke at the expense of the victim, might also be conceived of as something of a morbid groom of the equine variety.<\/p>\n Allen, Nicholas. 1995. \u201cWhy did Odysseus Become a Horse?\u201d Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford <\/em>26: 143\u201354.<\/p>\n Bader, Fran\u00e7oise. 1999. \u201cD\u2019Epeios \u00e0 Pelops le V\u00e9n\u00e8te, ou du cheval de Troie au quadrige olympique: 1. Epeios de Phocide, charpentier du cheval de Troie.\u201d Ollodagos<\/em> 12: 3\u201370.<\/p>\n Bader, Fran\u00e7oise. 2000. \u201cD\u2019Epeios \u00e0 P\u00e9lops le V\u00e9n\u00e8te, ou du Cheval de Troie au Quadrige olympique: 2. D\u2019Epeios \u1f31\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u00e0 Epeios d\u2019Elide aux jeux olympiques: une onomastique familiale structur\u00e9e.\u201d Ollodagos<\/em> 14: 47\u2013103.<\/p>\n Boyce, Mary. 1955. \u201cZariadres and Zarer.\u201d Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies <\/em>17: 463\u201377.<\/p>\n Cowell, Edward. 1859. \u201cOn the swayamvara<\/em> of the Ancient Hind\u00fas, and its Traces in the Ancient World Generally.\u201d Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal <\/em>28: 31\u201340.<\/p>\n Davidson, Olga. 2013. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings<\/em>. 3rd ed. Boston: Ilex Foundation, distributed by Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n De Jong, Albert. 2002. \u201cAnimal Sacrifice in Zoroastrianism.\u201d In Sacrifice in Religious Experience<\/em>. Ed. A. Baumgarten. Leiden: Brill, 127\u201348.<\/p>\n Dexter, Miriam Robbins. 1990. \u201cThe Hippomorphic Goddess and Her Offspring.\u201d Journal of Indo-European Studies <\/em>18: 285\u2013307.<\/p>\n Dum\u00e9zil, Georges. 1979. Mariages indo-europ\u00e9ens, suivi de quinze questions romaines<\/em>. Paris: Payot.<\/p>\n Dum\u00e9zil, Georges. 1994. Le roman des jumeaux et autres essais: vingt-cinq esquisses de mythologie<\/em> (76\u2013100)<\/em>. Ed. Jo\u00ebl Grisward. Paris: Gallimard.<\/p>\n Edmunds, Lowell. 2016. Stealing Helen: The Myth of the Abducted Wife in Compar<\/em>ative Perspective<\/em>. Princeton: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n Fickett-Wilbar, David. 2012. \u201cRitual Details of the Irish Horse Sacrifice in Betha Mholaise Daiminse<\/em>.\u201d Journal of Indo-European Studies <\/em>40: 315\u201343.<\/p>\n Frame, Douglas. 1978. The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic<\/em>. New Haven: Yale University Press.<\/p>\n Frame, Douglas. 2009. Hippota Nestor. <\/em>Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, distributed by Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n Gaitzsch, Torsten. 2011. Das Pferd bei den Indogermanen: sprachliche, kulturelle und arch\u00e4ologische Aspekte<\/em>. Berlin: LIT.<\/p>\n Goetinck, Glenys. 1994. \u201cDioscuric and Other Themes in Branwen<\/em>.\u201d Ollodagos <\/em>6: 219\u2013254.<\/p>\n Goetinck, Glenys. 2010. \u201cThe Divine Twins and Medieval Welsh Literature.\u201d In Deuogdonion: m\u00e9langes offerts en l\u2019honneur du professeur Claude Sterckx<\/em>. Ed. G. Hily, P. Lajoye, J. Hasco\u00ebt et. al. Rennes: TIR, 259\u2013276.<\/p>\n Grottanelli, Cristiano. 1986. \u201cYoked Horses, Twins and the Powerful Lady: India, Greece, Ireland and Elsewhere.\u201d Journal of Indo-European Studies<\/em> 14: 125\u201352.<\/p>\n Hirschberger, Martina. 2004. Gynaik\u014dn Kalalogos und Megalai \u0112hoiai<\/em>. Munich: Saur.<\/p>\n Jackson, Peter. 2006. The Transformations of Helen: Indo-European Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Cycle<\/em>. Dettelbach: R\u00f6ll.<\/p>\n Jamison, Stephanie. 1994. \u201cDraupad\u012b on the Walls of Troy: Iliad <\/em>3 from an Indic Perspective.\u201d Classical Antiquity<\/em> 13: 5\u201316.<\/p>\n Jamison, Stephanie. 1997. \u201cA G\u0101ndharva Marriage in the Odyssey<\/em>: Nausicaa and her Imaginary Husband.\u201d In Studies in Honor of Jaan Puhvel. Part 2: Mythology and Religion<\/em>. Ed. J. Greppin and E. C. Polom\u00e9. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 151\u201360.<\/p>\n Jamison, Stephanie. 1999. \u201cPenelope and the Pigs: Indic Perspectives on the Odyssey<\/em>.\u201d Classical Antiquity<\/em> 18: 227\u201372.<\/p>\n Jamison, Stephanie. 2001. \u201cThe Rigvedic svaya\u1e43vara<\/em>? Formulaic Evidence.\u201d In Vidy\u0101r\u1e47avavandanam: Essays in Honour of Asko Parpola<\/em>. Ed. K. Karttunen and P. Koskikallio. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 303\u201315.<\/p>\n Janda, Michael. 2014. Morgenr\u00f6te \u00fcber Mykene: ein indogermanischer Mythos<\/em>. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kulturwissenschaft.<\/p>\n Katz, Joshua. 2005. \u201cThe Indo-European Context.\u201d In A Companion to Ancient Epic<\/em>. Ed. J. M. Foley. Oxford: Blackwell, 20\u201330.<\/p>\n Kuhn, Adalbert. 1864. \u201cIndische und germanische segensspr\u00fcche.\u201d Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebeite des deutschen, griechischen und lateinischen<\/em> 13: 49\u201374, 113\u201357.<\/p>\n Louden, Bruce. 1996. \u201cEpeios, Odysseus, and the Indo-European Metaphor for Poet.\u201d Journal of Indo-European Studies <\/em>24: 277\u2013304.<\/p>\n McDonald, John. 2015. \u201cBuilding Bulls and Crafting Cows: Narratives of Bovine Fabrication from Iran, Ireland, and In-between.\u201d In Erin and Iran: <\/em>Cultural Encounters Between the Irish and the Iranians<\/em>. Ed. H. Chehabi and G. Neville. Boston and Washington, DC: Ilex Foundation and Center for Hellenic Studies, distributed by Harvard University Press, 14\u201335.<\/p>\n Meulder, Marcel. 2001. \u201cTrois mariages et un h\u00e9r\u00f4on.\u201d Studia Indo-Europ\u00e6a<\/em> 1: 251\u2013254.<\/p>\n Meulder, Marcel. 2007. \u201cGu\u0161t\u0101p et Lug: des similitues irano-celtiques.\u201d Res Antiquae <\/em>4: 91\u2013104.<\/p>\n Moazami, Mahnaz. 2014. Wrestling with the Demons of the Pahlavi Wid\u0113wd\u0101d: Transcription, Translation, and Commentary<\/em>. Leiden: Brill.<\/p>\n Nikolaev, Alexander. 2012. \u201cAvestan Ha\u0113cat\u0330.aspa-, Rigveda 4.43, and the Myth of the Divine Twins.\u201d Journal of the American Oriental Society<\/em> 132: 567\u201375.<\/p>\n Oettinger, Norbert. 2008. \u201cAn Indo-European Custom of Sacrifice in Greece and Elsewhere.\u201d In Evidence and Counter-Evidence: Essays in Honour of Frederik Kortlandt. Volume 1: Balto-Slavic and Indo-European Linguistics<\/em>. Ed. A. Lubotsky, J. Schaeken and J. Wiedenhof. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 403\u201314.<\/p>\n \u00d3lafsson, Haraldur. 1995. \u201cIndo-European Horse Sacrifice in the Book of Settlements<\/em>.\u201d Temenos <\/em>31: 127\u2013143.<\/p>\n Pinault, Georges-Jean. 2007. \u201cGaulois Epomeduos<\/em>, le ma\u00eetre des cheveaux.\u201d In Gaulois et celtique continental<\/em>. Ed. P.-Y. Lambert and G.-J. Pinault. Geneva: Droz, 291\u2013307.<\/p>\n Pinault, Jean-Georges. 2010. \u201cLe nom proto-indo-europ\u00e9en du sacrifice du cheval.\u201d In Deuogdonion: m\u00e9langes offerts en l\u2019honneur du professeur Claude Sterckx<\/em>. Ed. G. Hily, P. Lajoye, J. Hasco\u00ebt et. al. Rennes: TIR, 527\u201333.<\/p>\n Pinault, Jean-Georges. 2015. \u201cH\u00e9l\u00e8ne retrouv\u00e9e: l\u2019\u00e9tymologie de grec \u1f19\u03bb\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7.\u201d Linguistique Balkanique <\/em>54: 155\u2013171.<\/p>\n Platte, Ryan. Equine Poetics<\/em>. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2017.<\/p>\n Puhvel, Jaan. 1970. \u201cAspects of Equine Functionality.\u201d In Myth and Law among the Indo-Europeans. <\/em>Ed. J. Puhvel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 159\u201372.<\/p>\n Rose, Christian. 2006. \u201cLe cheval de Troie, l\u2019a\u015bvamedha<\/em> et A\u015bvatth\u0101man.\u201d In Anthropology of the Indo-European World and Material Culture<\/em>. Ed. M. Garc\u00eda Quintela, F. Gonz\u00e1lez Garc\u00eda and F. Criado Boado. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 229\u201358.<\/p>\n Sansalvador, Ana Vegas. 2016. \u201cIranian An\u0101hit\u0101<\/em>– and Greek Artemis: Three Significant Coincidences.\u201d In Sahasram Ati Srajas: Indo-Iranian and Indo-European Studies in Honor of Stephanie W. Jamison<\/em>. Ed. D. Gunkel, J. Katz, B. Vine, and M. Weiss. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press, 233\u2013243.<\/p>\n Skj\u00e6rv\u00f8, Prods Oktor. 2013. \u201cKay\u0101ni\u0101n ix. Kauui Vi\u0161t\u0101spa, Kay Wi\u0161t\u0101sp, Kay Be\u0161t\u0101sb\/Go\u0161t\u0101sb.\u201d Encyclopedia Iranica<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sommerstein, Alan and Andrew Bayliss. 2013. Oath and State in Ancient Greece. <\/em>Berlin: De Gruyter.<\/p>\n Sterckx, Claude. 2013. \u201cL\u2019enl\u00e8vement d\u2019Europe par Zeus: un r\u0101jas\u016bya<\/em> grec? Nouvelle Mythologie Compar\u00e9e<\/em> 1.<\/p>\n Treloar, Adrian. 1985. \u201cSvayamvara.\u201d Prudentia <\/em>17: 1\u201317.<\/p>\n Walker, Henry. 2015. The Twin Horse Gods: The Dioskouroi in Mythologies of the Ancient World. <\/em>London: I. B. Tauris.<\/p>\n Ward, Donald. 1968. The Divine Twins: An Indo-European Theme in Germanic Tradition.<\/em> Berkeley: University of California Press.<\/p>\n West, Martin. 2007. Indo-European Poetry and Myth.<\/em> Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n Wikander, Stig. 1950. \u201cSur le fonds commun indo-iranien des \u00e9pop\u00e9es de la Perse et de l\u2019Inde.\u201d La Nouvelle Clio <\/em>2:310\u2013329.<\/p>\n Wikander, Stig. 1957. \u201cNakula et Sahadeva.\u201d Orientalia Suecana<\/em> 6: 66\u201396.<\/p>\n Zaroff, Roman. 2005. \u201cA\u015bvamedha: A Vedic Horse Sacrifice.\u201d Studia Myth<\/em>ologica Slavica <\/em>8: 75\u201386.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Davidson 2013: 126\u201337.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> For an Irish comparandum to the mythology of Goshtasp see Meulder 2007.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> For a brief introduction to Indo-European epic tradition see Katz 2005. On the subject of marriage in Indo-European law and lore in general see Dum\u00e9zil 1979.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Hyginus Fabulae <\/em>78. The comparison is made by West 2007: 434.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Helen: Jamison 2001: 313\u201314; Penelope: Jamison 1999; Nausicaa: Jamison 1997. According to Jamison, Helen\u2019s very name might mean \u201cChooser,\u201d an etymology that has been accepted by some and called into question by others; see, for example, Janda 2014: 103 and Pinault 2015. Multiple marriages of Helen are studied from an Indo-European perspective by Meulder 2001, and Jamison 1994 convincingly argues for the Indo-European ancestry of precise details of Helen\u2019s eventual rescue following her abduction by and illegal marriage to Paris. Edmunds 2016 promotes this work of Jamison\u2019s. In light of the fact that the wedding of Nahid and Goshtasp corresponds to that of Helen and Menelaus, one could consider the possibility that the episode of the abduction of Goshtasp\u2019s daughters and their subsequent rescue might be cognate with that of Helen\u2019s similar experience.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> An old but still good cross-cultural discussion of bridal self-choices is Cowell 1859.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> A classic study of Nakula and Sahadeva\u2019s Dioscuric aspects is Wikander 1957. As for the Ashvins, they have a reduced and demonized Iranian equivalent in Nanghaithiya. For a study of Zoroastrian demons see Moazami 2014. Dum\u00e9zil 1994: 150\u201352, 158\u201365 already presents Goshtasp and Zarir as incarnations of the Indo-European tradition of a Dioscuric dyad.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Jamison 2001.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Wikander 1950: 318 similarly portrays Nahid, her husband Goshtasp and her father-in-law Lohrasp as a version of this trio.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Equine lore recounted by cultures of Indo-European heritage in general owes much to inherited traditions. See Gaitzsch 2011. For a recent study of horses in Greek tradition with a recurring eye to inherited material see Platte 2017. As in other instances, what is synchronically odd about Greek horse lore can sometimes be explained by means of an Indo-European approach. For an Indo-Greek interpretation of Odysseus\u2019 transformation into a horse see Allen 1995.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Frame 1978 and 2009 study the Dioskouroi and related Greek dyads, including the consistent equine aspect of these pairs, from a comparative perspective, as does Walker 2015. Ward 1968 is a pan-Indo-European study of Dioscuric pairs focused on Germanic traditions; Goetinck 1994 and 2010 investigate Welsh manifestations of this tradition. For a recent discussion of the Indo-Iranian figures in question see Nikolaev 2012.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> Kuhn 1864: 49\u201374, 113\u201357.<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Hirschberger 2004: 135.<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> Aeneid<\/em> 6, Odyssey<\/em> 4.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> Louden 1996.<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> Bader 1999 and 2000. The cow that the Rbhus construct has also been built with reference to a hereditary narrative; see McDonald 2015.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Polybius 12.4b-c.<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> For a comparatively oriented discussion of the Ashvamedha see Zaroff 2005. A classic study of Indo-European horse sacrifice is Puhvel 1970. Pinault 2007 and 2010 alternately correct and expand on some of the earlier scholarship. \u00d3lafsson 1995 and Fickett-Wilbar 2012 examine Irish comparanda.<\/p>\n [19]<\/a> See Rose 2006 and Sterckx 2013.<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> Pausanias 3.20.9.<\/p>\n [21]<\/a> See the remarks of Sommerstein and Bayliss 2013: 153.<\/p>\n [22]<\/a> That Helen\u2019s interactions with the Trojan Horse and the horse sacrifice that accompanies the Oath of Tyndareus are expressions of the combination with horses that appears to have been characteristic of one of Helen\u2019s Indo-European antecedents is further indicated in the fact that another Indic sister of Helen, Saranyu, who is absconded from her husband and replaced with a replica much in the same way as Helen, in the non-Homeric version of her mythology, is taken from Paris in Egypt and replaced with a duplicate made of cloud, flees from her husband in the form of a horse and gives birth to the thoroughly equine twin Ashvins, the aforementioned Indic equivalents of Helen\u2019s twin brothers the Dioskouroi who are likewise extensively associated with horses. On this topic see Dexter 1990, Grottanelli 1986 and Jackson 2006.<\/p>\n [23]<\/a> Anahita is also arguably involved in the version of this narrative told by Chares of Mytilene and preserved by Athenaeus, in which the brothers Hystaspes (Goshtasp) and Zariadres (Zarir), who is selected by the princess Odatis at her bridal self-choice, are said to be the sons of Aphrodite, an interpretation Graeca <\/em>of Anahita. See Boyce 1955: 470\u20131. For a cross-cultural study of this version of the tale see Treloar 1985.<\/p>\n [24]<\/a> See Sansalvador 2016.<\/p>\n [25]<\/a> For the specifically one hundred stallions as a hereditary detail see Oettinger 2008: 410. For a remark on equine victims in pre-Zarathustran Iranian religion see De Jong 2002: 143. As Holly, referencing the work of Wikander, notes (Davidson 2013: 130\u20131), the Aban Yasht<\/em> tells us that Auruuataspa, Lohrasp\u2019s Avestan equivalent, also worships Anahita, so that from a pan-Iranian perspective, Lohrasp, through his Avestan namesake, becomes associated with Nahid beyond her marriage to his son.<\/p>\nWorks Cited<\/h2>\n
Footnotes<\/h2>\n