#12 The Story of the Most Beautiful Woman of Sparta
The most beautiful woman - Helen of Sparta, and a marriage fixed through alliance and wisdom.
Hello everyone,
Hope you are having an amazing week. Today’s newsletter explores the story of Helen - the most desired princess of Sparta who would soon become famous for sparking the Trojan War and was an ethereal beauty. Hope you enjoy reading about one of the most popular events in Greek Mythology!
Even the most beautiful and sought after women and the most powerful and wisest of men can turn a blind eye towards the conspiracies of people when it comes to marriage.
As simple as it might seem, marriages aren’t always based on love and affection, but sometimes, it takes excellent alliances to get two people together.
The Most Beautiful Woman in Greece
In Greek mythology, Helen was the most beautiful woman from the age of the heroes. She was the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Helen of Troy, also called Helen of Sparta, is a figure from Greek mythology whose elopement with or abduction by the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the Trojan War.
Helen was the wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus persuaded his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, to form a great army to besiege the mighty city of Troy in order to recapture Helen.
Following the Greek victory in the war, Helen returned home with Menelaus, but she became a despised figure in the ancient world, a symbol of moral failure and the perils of placing lust above reason. Despite the poor standing of the literary Helen, she also had a divine form and was the centre of cults at several Greek sites, notably Rhodes, Sparta, and Therapne.
In Greek mythology, Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, the queen of Sparta and the wife of Tyndareus. Zeus disguised himself as a swan to seduce Leda and Helen was the result of their amorous engagement.
In another version of the myth, Helen’s mother is the goddess Nemesis, the personification of retribution. Whoever is the mother, in both versions, Helen is born from an egg in Sparta. Helen’s siblings included the hero twins Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra, the future wife of King Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae.
One day, Tyndareus offered sacrifices to all the gods but forgot Aphrodite and the goddess, angered at the slight, then promised that all of the king’s daughters would become infamous for their adultery.
Kidnapping by Theseus
Theseus is a legendary hero from Greek mythology who was considered an early king of Athens. Famously killing villains, Amazons, and centaurs, his most celebrated adventure was his slaying of the fearsome Minotaur of the Cretan king Minos. In the Classical period, Theseus came to represent the perfect Athenian — the just man-of-action determined to serve his city as best he could and a staunch defender of democracy.
Despite the tragic ends of his affairs with Ariadne, Antiope, and Phaedra, Theseus had not yet given up on finding a suitable wife. This time, he aimed a little higher. Instead of an Amazon queen or a granddaughter of Zeus, Theseus chose to pursue a daughter of Zeus: Helen, a princess of Sparta who would soon become famous for sparking the Trojan War and was an exceptional beauty.
So Theseus, together with Pirithous, the king of Larissa, went out to Sparta and kidnapped Helen when she was 10 or 11 years old. Then they brought her to Aphidnae, a small city outside of Athens.
There, Helen took care of Aethra, the mother of Theseus. After that, it was Pirithous’ turn to choose a wife, and he opted for Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld.
So the two friends descended to Hades in order to fetch her. But Hades, the supreme god of the underworld, understood that his visitors intended to capture Persephone, so he threw Theseus into prison and let his dog Cerberus tear Pirithous to pieces. By the time Theseus was in the prison of the Underworld, Helen’s brothers Castor and Pollux, also known as Dioscuri, invaded Aphidnae, rescued Helen and brought her back to Sparta.
King Menelaus
Menelaus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology and literature who was the king of Sparta and the husband of beautiful Helen, whose abduction by the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the legendary Trojan War. In Greek mythology, Menelaus was the son of Atreus, the king of Mycenae and the younger brother of Agamemnon.
In some traditions, the two brothers were the grandchildren of Atreus but were looked after by him when his son and their father Pleisthenes died prematurely. Their mother was Aerope, the daughter of Catreus, the king of Crete.
The family union between Greece and Crete perhaps reflected a desire on the part of the Bronze Age Mycenaean Greeks to claim some sort of cultural heritage from the earlier Minoan civilisation on that island.
Helens’ Return
After her brothers had rescued Helen, the city of Sparta was celebrating her return. By this time, Helen was looking for a suitor as she always had a threat of being kidnapped.
Because of Helen’s ethereal beauty, she was the most sought after and desired princess in Greece. After the news of Helen reaching the age of getting married had spread, all the suitors came rushing to Sparta. The king was unable to choose between all the suitors.
Among the nobles present at the court was Odysseus, the king of the island of Ithaca. He was known for his cunning and sagacious mind and was rumoured to be the son of Sisyphus.
Odysseus was not interested in Helen as he presumed that a woman so beautiful would only bring him trouble and misery. Instead, he had his eyes on Helen’s sister Penelope. She was not as attractive as Helen but was much smarter and more intelligent.
Odysseus approached the king, made him a proposal, and asked him to use his influence over his brother Icarus to convince him to give Penelope’s hand. This way, the king would be put out of the misery of choosing a suitor for Helen.
The Final Suitor
After listening to the Proposal, the king agreed and announced that Helen would choose the husband herself and that the king would not interfere with the will of the gods. Helen was allowed to choose her husband.
As she carefully evaluated the men present there, she saw prince Menelaus. He was so charming and handsome that her knees started to tremble. The king and Odysseus’s plan worked out as Helen chose Menelaus, and he reciprocated the same way as he was aware of Helen’s youthful naivety. Helen had many famous suitors, but she would marry Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus, king of Sparta.
As part of the marriage deal, Tyndareus sacrificed a horse and made all the Greek leaders swear to recognise Helen as Menelaus’ rightful wife and protect his daughter from harm. This oath would have serious consequences when the time came for war.
Before Menelaus married Helen, Helen’s earthly father Tyndareus extracted the oath from the Achaean leaders that should anyone try to kidnap Helen again; they would all bring their troops to win back Helen for her rightful husband, and so when Paris took Helen to Troy, Agamemnon gathered together these Achaean leaders and made them honour their promise. That was the beginning of the Trojan War.
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