Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Lynceus.
The gallery
The Dioscuri, Idas and Lynceus Driving Cattle (Metope of the Sicyonian Treasury at Delphi)
Unknown, c. 560 BC
This Archaic limestone metope, carved around 560 BC for the Treasury (or monopteros) of the Sicyonians at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi and now in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, depicts the cattle raid in which the Messenian brothers Idas and Lynceus join their cousins the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. Four heroes stride in profile beside the rustled herd, their names once inscribed above them. The episode is the prelude to the quarrel over the spoils that would ignite the fatal feud between the Apharetids and the Dioscuri—the conflict in which Lynceus, the lynx-eyed Argonaut lookout famed for sight that could pierce wood and earth, was struck down by Pollux's spear. As one of the few securely identified Archaic Greek images naming Lynceus, the relief is a cornerstone witness to his myth.