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Helen was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta (a fact Aphrodite neglected to mention), so Paris had to raid Menelaus's house to steal Helen from him—according to some accounts, she fell in love with Paris and left willingly. The Spartans' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War.
Helen (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη, romanized: Helénē [a]), also known as Helen of Troy, [2] [3] Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, [4] and in Latin as Helena, [5] was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world.
The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War. According to some stories, Helen of Troy was kidnapped by Paris and group of Trojans; in others, she simply followed Paris willingly because she felt affection for him, too.
Menelaus was a descendant of Pelops son of Tantalus. [3] He was the younger brother of Agamemnon, and the husband of Helen of Troy.According to the usual version of the story, followed by the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Agamemnon and Menelaus were the sons of Atreus, king of Mycenae, and Aerope, daughter of the Cretan king Catreus. [4]
She was just nine years old when Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam, arrived to abduct her mother, Helen. During the war, Menelaus promised her to Achilles ' son, Neoptolemus . [ 4 ] After the war ended, he sent Hermione away to the city of Phthia (the home of Peleus and Achilles), where Neoptolemus was staying.
After the death of Paris, Deiphobus was given Helen of Troy as a bride for his deeds in the war, defeating the bid of his other brother, Helenus. Euripides , in The Trojan Women , states that the marriage was by force and that Helen felt “bitterly enslaved.”
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According to Euripides' telling, [1] Paris only abducted a phantom of the title heroine from her husband, Menelaus, and the real Helen was taken to Egypt by the gods, where Theoclymenus attempted to marry her, but she would not consent.