Leda’s Family Tree

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Family

• Tyndareus(spouse),Zeus(spouse),Clytemnestra(child),Dioscuri(child),Helen of Troy(child)— Marriage

  Zeus approached Leda in the form of a swan, and on the same night she also lay with her husband Tyndareus. From this dual union came the Dioscuri, Helen, and Clytemnestra.

  ⚠ Sources disagree on which children are divine and which mortal. The most common tradition makes Helen and Polydeuces children of Zeus, while Castor and Clytemnestra are Tyndareus's. Other versions vary the combinations.

• Jupiter(spouse, Roman),Castor and Pollux(child, Roman)— Consort

  Jupiter visited Leda in the form of a swan, fathering Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, and Helen, whose divine beauty later sparked the Trojan War.

  ⚠ Hyginus (Fabulae 77) makes both twins sons of Jupiter, but the dominant tradition (Apollodorus Library 3.10.7) holds that Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus conceived the same night as Pollux.

• Thestius(parent),Althaea(sibling)

  Althaea and Leda were both daughters of Thestius, king of Pleuron. Althaea married Oeneus of Calydon and bore Meleager, while Leda married Tyndareus of Sparta and bore Helen, Clytemnestra, and the Dioscuri.

Associated with

• Arachne

  Arachne depicted Leda and the swan in her tapestry, showing Zeus's seduction of the Spartan queen that produced Helen and the Dioscuri.

• Nemesis

  In the variant tradition where Nemesis laid Helen's egg, Leda found and kept the egg, raising Helen as her own daughter at Sparta.