Menelaus king of sparta biography

Egyptian Mythology Guide. Chinese Mythology Guide. Celtic Mythology Guide. Hindu Mythology Guide. Aztec Mythology Guide. Japanese Mythology Guide. Tiefling DnD Name Generator. Korean Name Generator. Mage Name Generator. Dragon Name Generator. Greek God Name Generator. Barbarian Name Generator. Many heroes died on both sides. The fight commenced and Menelaus was about to kill Paris.

He grabbed Paris by the crest of his helmet and started to drag him along, when the goddess Aphrodite, who favored Paris for choosing her as the fairest, intervened by breaking the strap of the helmet and setting Paris free, leaving Menelaus with just a helmet in his hands. Menelaus recovered quickly and continued the attack, but Aphrodite clouded Paris in a mist, hiding him from further blows and swiftly took him away from the fight to another place in the city.

Paris was later severely wounded in battle and Helen brought him to Mount Ida to beg his first wife, the nymph Oenone, to help to save him. But Oenone, still angry about being left for Helen, decided against doing so. A few days later, Oenone changed her mind, but it was too late, as Paris had already perished form his war wounds. When she found him dead, she hung herself.

The truce ended when an arrow was shot at Menelaus, who suffered a minor wound. Troy was taken when Odysseus had the idea for the wooden horse. Select warriors hid inside the hollow horse, enabling them to enter the city and open the gates for the rest of the army. After the death of Paris, Helen married his brother, Deiphobus. Menelaus killed him by slowly cutting him into pieces, limb by limb.

He then took Helen back to his ship. After the defeat of Troy, the Greeks began their journey home. However, they were detained and delayed for years because they neglected to offer sacrifices to the Trojan gods. The story of their voyage home is told in the epic Odyssey by Homer. Many of them never reached home at all. Menelaus and Helen wandered the Mediterranean for eight years before they were able to return to Sparta.

Once they were finally back home, they regained their kingdom, and lived a happy life in the palace. Together with Helen, he dwells peacefully in the Elysian Fields for eternity. The name Menelaus itself means withstanding the people. Most offered opulent gifts. Tyndareus would accept none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the suitors away for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel.

Menelaus king of sparta biography

Odysseus promised to solve the problem in a satisfactory manner if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Tyndareus's niece Penelope , the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband in any quarrel. Then it was decreed that straws were to be drawn for Helen's hand.

The suitor who won was Menelaus Tyndareus, not to displease the mighty Agamemnon offered him another of his daughters, Clytaemnestra. According to legend, in return for awarding her a golden apple inscribed "to the fairest," Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. After concluding a diplomatic mission to Sparta during the latter part of which Menelaus was absent to attend the funeral of his maternal grandfather Catreus in Crete , Paris ran off to Troy with Helen despite his brother Hector 's prohibition.

Invoking the oath of Tyndareus , Menelaus and Agamemnon raised a fleet of a thousand ships and went to Troy to secure Helen's return; the Trojans refused, providing a casus belli for the Trojan War. Homer 's Iliad is the most comprehensive source for Menelaus's exploits during the Trojan War. In Book 3, Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen's return.

Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, Aphrodite spirits Paris away inside the walls of Troy. In Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel's winner, Athena inspires the Trojan Pandarus to shoot Menelaus with his bow and arrow. However, Athena never intended for Menelaus to die and she protects him from the arrow of Pandarus.

Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended aristeia as the hero retrieves the corpse of Patroclus from the battlefield. According to Hyginus , Menelaus killed eight men in the war, and was one of the Greeks hidden inside the Trojan Horse. Book 4 of the Odyssey provides an account of Menelaus's return from Troy and his homelife in Sparta. When visited by Odysseus's son Telemachus , Menelaus recounts his voyage home.

As happened to many Greeks, Menelaus's homebound fleet was blown by storms to Crete and Egypt where they were becalmed, unable to sail away. They trapped Proteus and forced him to reveal how to make the voyage home. Once back in Sparta, he and Helen are shown to be reconciled and have a harmonious married life—he holding no grudge at her having run away with a lover and she feeling no restraint in telling anecdotes of her life inside besieged Troy.

Menelaus does seem to be pained that he and Helen have no male heir, and is shown to be fond of Megapenthes and Nicostratus , his sons by slave women. Menelaus appears in Greek vase painting in the 6th to 4th centuries BC, such as: Menelaus's reception of Paris at Sparta; his retrieval of Patroclus's corpse; and his reunion with Helen.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Mene, Mene, Tekel, U-Farsin. Mene maculata. Mendoza, Pedro de — Mendoza, Lydia —. Mendoza, Jessica —. Mendoza, Jaime — Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de. Mendoza, Daniel. Mendoza, Carlos Antonio — Mendoza, Antonio de — Mendoza, Ana de fl. Mendoza, Ana de — Menelaws, Adam. Menen — Menen, Aubrey Clarence.

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