Menelaus - Trojan War

Trojan War

In a 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, Paris absconded to Troy with Helen in tow despite his brother Hector forbidding her to depart with them. Invoking the oath of Tyndareus, Menelaus and Agamemnon raised a fleet of one thousand ships according to legend and went to Troy to secure Helen's return; the Trojans were recalcitrant, providing a casus belli for the Trojan War. Indeed, his name is interpreted in Greek as "Μῆνις Λαοῦ" (Wrath of the People) fitting his 'historing" role in the epics or "Μένος Λαοῦ" (Force/Impetus of the People). .

Homer's Iliad is the most expansive source for Menelaus' 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 kill Menelaus with his bow and arrow. Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. 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. During the sack of Troy, Menelaus killed Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris.

There are three versions of Menelaus' and Helen's reunion on the night of the sack of Troy: a) Menelaus resolved to kill Helen but Euripides tells us that, when he found her, her striking beauty prompted him to drop his sword and take her back to his ship “to punish her at Sparta”, as he claimed, but in reality she got away with it. b) According to the Bibliotheca Epitome and Proclus in "Ilion's Conquest", Menelaus raised his sword in front of the temple of Minerva in the central square of Troy to kill her but his wrath went away when he saw her tearing her clothes to reveal her breasts. c) A similar version by Stesichorus in “Ilion’s Conquest” narrated that Menelaus surrendered her indeed to his soldiers to stone her to death; however, when she ripped the front of her robes, the Achaean warriors got stunned by her beauty and the stones fell harmlessly from their hands.