the son of Tyndareus king of Amyclae, and of Leda, according to the tradition followed by Homer, was by late writers, along with his sister Helen, made the child of Jupiter, who gained the affections of Lydia in the form of a swan. He was the brother of Castor and Clytemnestra, and was born in the island Pephnos, on the coast of Laconia. Pollux was distinguished for his skill in boxing and wrestling; whilst Castor was famed for his horsemanship. They both took an active part in the hunt of the Calydonian boar, and joined Jason in his search for the golden fleece. On their return they were invited by their cousins Lynceus and Idas, the sons of Aphares, to attend their marriage with Phoebe and Hileira, daughters of Leucippus, prince of Messene. They, however, became so enamoured of the two brides, that they forcibly attempted to carry them off, when Castor was killed by Idas. Jupiter, enraged at this proceeding, struck Idas with a thunderbolt; and, to comfort Pollux, offered him his choice of immortality, or, if he preferred it, to live and die alternately with his brother. He chose the latter. Another tradition makes Pollux show his fraternal love by dividing his immortality in such a way that Castor lived one day and Pollux the next; but Homer does not allude to this. Pollux was said to have married Phoebe, daughter of Leucippus, and to have had by her Mnesileus. Having had a dispute with his cousin Idas respecting the division of some spoil they had driven from Messenia, he is represented by one tradition as having perished by the hands of Idas.

Julius, a Greek writer of antiquity, was born at Naucrates, a town in Egypt, and flourished in the reign of the Emperor Commodus. He was educated under the Sophists, and made great progress in grammatical and critical learning. Having taught rhetoric at Athens, he became so famous that he was made preceptor of the Emperor Commodus. He drew up for the use of the latter, and inscribed to him, whilst his father Marcus Antoninus was living, an Onomasticum, or Greek vocabulary, which he divided into ten books. It is extant, and contains a vast variety of synonymous words and phrases, ranged under the general classes of things. It was intended to facilitate the knowledge of the Greek language to the young prince; and it is still very useful to all who have a mind to be perfect in that tongue. The first edition of the Onomasticum was printed at Venice by Aldus in 1502, and a Latin version was afterwards published along with it; but there was no correct and handsome edition of this work till that of Amsterdam, 1706, in folio, by Lederlinus and Hemsterhusius. Lederlinus went through the first seven books, and corrected the text and the version, subjoining his own along with the notes of Salmasius, Vossius, Valesius, and Kuhnius. Pollux wrote many other things, none of which remains. He lived to the age of fifty-eight. Philostratus and Lucian have both treated him with much contempt and ridicule. (Philostrat. de Vit. Sophist. lib. ii.; and Lucian in Rhetorum Preceptore.)