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This chapter turns to a comparison of the myth of Helen with “Abduction” as defined in Chapter 1. It reconstructs the myth by outlining the stages of Helen's life—her birth, her childhood, and so forth—and of episodes, which contain scenes of relatively independent actions, such as her abduction. Besides the events of Helen's life, the chapter also discusses the men most closely connected to her story, above all Menelaus and Paris. In addition, this chapter takes account of variants, recording and discussing them as they bear on the outline of Helen's life story. For this purpose, the chapter is guided by the principle that what is latest in the history of the sources may be earliest in the history of the myth.

This chapter discusses Herodotus' use of the Homeric concept of xenia in the Histories. It argues that the appearance of xenia in key passages reflects the importance of Homeric epic and of the Greek legendary and mythic tradition for Herodotus' historiography. Herodotus foregrounds xenia in two logoi: Croesus' acceptance of Adrastus as a xenos (I.35–45) and Proteus' rebuke of Paris for wronging Menelaus (II.114–117). These logoi culminate in the death of Croesus' son Atys and in Herodotus' statement of his own opinion about the reason for Troy's destruction. The terminology of xenia establishes a Homeric tone that highlights these passages' significance for one of the overarching themes of the Histories: from the earliest encounters of Greeks and Asians onward, the gods made it clear that great transgressions by Eastern rulers would be punished. Paris in the remote past and Croesus at the cusp of humanly verifiable memory are guilty of the same transgression as was Xerxes within living memory; they overstep their bounds and claim more than is their right. Herodotus' inclusion of recognizably Homeric xenia in these logoi underscores the inevitability of divinely-sanctioned nemesis against such transgressions.

This chapter explores the depiction of Menelaus in archaic art. Menelaus appears in Greek art by the mid-seventh century BC and continues to be depicted by artists into the classical period and beyond. One may roughly divide images of Menelaus into two categories: ‘with Helen’ and ‘everything else’. Early on, ‘everything else’—depictions of Menelaus without Helen—is in fact more frequent, so far as one can tell from the few images that remain. By the mid-sixth century, however, Menelaus is depicted with Helen almost exclusively. Menelaus-Helen images have been studied by art historians and philologists from the standpoint of Helen. Scant attention has been given, however, to what the pictures ‘say’ about Menelaus. Even though certain iconographic details change somewhat over the course of the sixth century, there is a mostly stable and coherent depiction of Menelaus in black- and early red-figure Athenian vases that differs from his depiction in the classical period. The chapter then provides an annotated catalogue of the known images in which Menelaus appears without Helen.

This chapter provides the original text of Sophocles's play about Ajax. It talks about how the play began with the death of Achilles and Ajax's desire to be rewarded with his armor. It also mentions Ajax's shame and intention of suicide after killing Agamemnon and Menelaus when they gave Achilles's armor to Oddyseus. This chapter recounts the dispute on what to do with Ajax's body after he committed suicide, whether it should remain unburied and ravaged by scavengers or given a proper burial. It discusses the ending of the play in which Odysseus insisted that Ajax should be buried properly.

This chapter discusses the ancient approach to trigonometry, beginning with Hipparchus of Rhodes, the founder of trigonometry. It reconstructs when and where Hipparchus must have lived by taking into account the observations that he made as an astronomer and the references his successors made to him. It then considers the theorems of Menelaus of Alexandria, whose book Sphaerica completely reinvented the mathematical study of the sphere. In particular, it describes Menelaus's Theorem, which became the standard tool of spherical astronomy for the next 900 years. It also examines Abū Sahl al-Kūhī's use of the Menelaus theorems to solve the problem of rising times of arcs of the ecliptic.

This chapter is devoted to Euripides’ tragedy Helen, which challenges the notion of woman as a “beautiful evil” by presenting Helen of Troy as the apogee of virtue. The play is set in the mythic fantasy land of Egypt, where the innocent Helen was transported by the gods when her double (eidolon) went to Troy. Euripides makes his heroine credible as Helen by providing her with versions of all her principal epic moments but rewriting them in her favor. She uses her traditional character traits, likewise, to preserve her virtue and her husband’s life. She adopts, in particular, a reformed attitude towards her own beauty, which she willingly defaces in order to return happily to Greece with her long-lost husband, Menelaus, who presents himself as the hero of the Trojan War and thus her fitting counterpart. Yet Euripides handles the story in ways that call into question the viability of this romantic fantasy. Menelaus’s manly “heroism” is undercut by mockery, and the illusory nature of the supremely beautiful and good woman is suggested by the theatrical Helen’s equivalence to her own eidolon.

This chapter discusses the portrayal of Menelaus in the Iliad. Menelaus is among the most important heroes in the Iliad, mentioned by name or making an appearance in seventeen out of the twenty-four books. Menelaus’ stature does not primarily depend, however, on the frequency of his appearances. The scholia note Homer’s evident sympathy for Menelaus, observing that Menelaus is, like Patroclus, ‘kindly’. Menelaus expresses concern for the sufferings of others; he takes pity on an enemy and swiftly comes to the aid of others, even at potential harm to himself. Moreover, Menelaus yields to his friends, not out of weakness, but regard. Ultimately, his ‘sympathetic’ personality arises from an acute awareness of his own responsibility for the Trojan War. Homer portrays this special trait of Menelaus’ character, his sympathy, through repeated actions and marked language. Indeed, Homer fashions Menelaus as a memorable and unique character within the traditional diction and rhetoric of his craft.

This chapter examines the portrayal of Menelaus in the Odyssey. The Odyssey-poet has a new role for Menelaus to play: Menelaus will help Telemachus to find, and the audience to understand, Odysseus. The chapter also reveals the importance of relationships in Homeric character-portrayal. In the Iliad, Homer refigures the relationships by which Menelaus was traditionally construed. He consistently defers to Agamemnon not out of inferiority or dependency but acts out of affection and choice. Helen matters very little to Menelaus, apart from the injustice of her abduction. The Odyssey-poet thematizes these same relationships rather differently. As the narrative begins, the returns of Menelaus and Agamemnon depend on one another. But as the story progresses, Menelaus distances himself, for a time, from brother and wife. Menelaus extricates himself from Helen in the course of his narrative, eliminating her altogether in the story of Proteus and casting himself as a hero of Odyssean mettle, with a fate all his own. The relationships by which Menelaus traditionally is construed begin to close in on him after the close of the Proteus narrative. Homer finally leaves Menelaus behind, in the shadow of Helen, when Telemachus returns to Ithaca.

This chapter assesses the depiction of Menelaus in non-Homeric archaic poetry. What emerges most clearly about Menelaus, from the bits and pieces remaining from non-Homeric archaic poetry, is relationships: chiefly with Agamemnon and Helen; but also with Nestor and his sons, Antenor, and with kinsmen and hosts on Crete. The Cyclic fragments, scant as they are, disclose something of Menelaus’ stature independent of Agamemnon. The Cypria particularly shows Menelaus in the events leading up to the Trojan War largely acting on his own, or the gods’, initiative. Meanwhile, the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women emphasizes Menelaus’ success by virtue of his wealth at the great world-historical moment, not the Trojan War per se but earlier, in the wooing of Helen. In what remains of Menelaus in archaic lyric, the relationships with Agamemnon and Helen are also prominent. In Alcman, he is celebrated, with Helen and the Dioscuri, as the recipient of choral song at a place called Therapne. In Stesichorus, Menelaus is sidelined while Helen turns prophet. In the extant fragments of Sappho, Menelaus is mentioned along with his brother and wife.

This chapter studies the cult of Menelaus and Helen at Therapne. A ‘happy congruence’ of evidence, from the seventh century BC onward, indicates that Menelaus and Helen were honoured at a place known in antiquity as Therapne. Indeed, authors from the early archaic period through the end of the era attest to the presence of a shrine to Menelaus and/or Menelaus and Helen on the hills across the Eurotas River from modern Sparta. The site, comprising an archaic shrine built next to and atop an extensive Mycenaean site, was well-studied by the British School early and late in the twentieth century. Moreover, inscriptional evidence corresponds with the ancient testimonia to indicate that Menelaus and Helen were worshiped at the place already known in antiquity as the Menelaion. Dedications to Helen and Menelaus dated to the seventh and sixth centuries BC are among the earliest reported inscriptional evidence for the worship of any Homeric hero in Greece. The archaic cult at the Menelaion is frequently discussed both for the study of hero cult in itself and for the question as to how early Greek cult did intersect with the proliferation of epic poetry.

This concluding chapter examines Simonides’ ‘Plataea Elegy’. Sometime not long after the Greek defeat of the Persian army at Plataea, Simonides composed an elegy to commemorate this world-historical event in ostentatiously epic terms. Menelaus makes an appearance in the elegy, with the Dioscuri, as patron of the Spartan contingent. The intriguing poem provides a final glimpse of Menelaus as the archaic period draws to a close. It suggests that Menelaus’ place in the cultic environment of archaic Sparta was matched by a significant role in Spartans’ self-definition. The chapter then assesses Simonides’ description of Menelaus as εὐρυβίης‎. Simonides seems to have been the first to adapt the epithet εὐρυβίης‎ to describe a hero. Public performance of the elegy would have provided the opportunity for quick and widespread dissemination of the newly re-discovered word. Its special use then became normative in the lyric diction of epinician poets in the early to mid-fifth century.

This chapter starts by discussing the techniques used to represent the beauty of Helen of Troy in Euripides’ tragedy Trojan Women, including costume and masking, dramatic context, and textual cues. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the scene in which she defends her behavior to Menelaus, who is determined to kill her for eloping. This remarkable performance backfires through its sophistic arguments, arrogance, and appropriation by a woman of the male prerogative of public speech. But it also draws attention to Helen’s body and its visual power. Hecuba, who speaks in response, rebuts Helen’s arguments but cannot compete with her self-display. Euripides thus stages a contest between visual “persuasion” and the power of rational discourse. The judge, Menelaus, is convinced by Hecuba, but the play ends with signs that Helen’s beauty will overcome his better judgment.

This chapter proposes that for some twenty years, Aristophanes and Euripides were engaging in a cross-generic dialogue about the appropriate use and effectiveness of dramatic costuming, which concerned the costume choices of dressing a royal in rags and dressing a male character in women’s clothes. It argues that Aristophanes’s Acharnians caricatured Euripides’s tendency to stage heroes in rags and that some years later, Euripides’s Helen reacted by depicting Menelaus as Aristophanes’s caricature of a Euripidean hero in rags. The chapter then suggests that the following year, Aristophanes’s Women at the Thesmophoria mocked Euripides by dressing him, his Kinsman, and his fellow tragedian Agathon in women’s clothes and that Euripides’s Bacchae responded by making Pentheus participate in the same kind of cross-dressing scene that Aristophanes used in Women at the Thesmophoria. The chapter analyzes these reappropriations as a type of literary rivalry aimed at achieving poetic supremacy.

This chapter analyzes Euripides’s Helen in terms of paracomedy and suggests that the structure of the play should be interpreted as staging a metaliterary conflict between tragedy and comedy. This conflict is expressed in the play through the characters of Helen, who represents tragedy, and Menelaus, who represents comedy. Euripides distinguishes the two characters by constantly characterizing Helen as tragic (through tragic themes, tragic beauty, and tragic piety) and Menelaus as paracomic (through comic jokes, comic alazoneia (“boastfulness”), comic ugliness, comic violence, and comic “knocking at the door” scenes). When Helen is finally established as superior to Menelaus, tragedy is established as superior to comedy. This chapter suggests that the structure, characterization, performance, and tone of the play are motivated by Euripides’s goals to assert dominance over comedy.

Much as she diminishes Achilles’ heroism, so, too, does Cassandra cast Odysseus in a negative light. This chapter explores in detail her treatment of that hero. By reconfiguring Odysseus’ account of his own adventures in the Odyssey, Cassandra explicitly engages with the question of their veracity. For her part, she minimizes his accomplishments, and by rewriting the telos of the Odyssey, undercuts the epic idea that the hero’s sufferings are offset by the glory conveyed by poetry. Her account of the adventures of Menelaus is thematically and verbally set up as parallel to her treatment of Odysseus, and rewrites the story that Menelaus himself tells in the Odyssey in a way that underscores the limited success of his nostos.