Sienna Guillory
Helen
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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.
Helen of Troy, in Greek legend, the most beautiful woman of Greece and the indirect cause of the Trojan War. She was daughter of Zeus, either by Leda or by Nemesis, and sister of the Dioscuri. As a young girl, she was carried off by Theseus, but she was rescued by her brothers.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Family Relations
- Abduction by Theseus
- The Judgement of Paris
- The Trojan War
- The Return Home
- The Cult of Helen
- Helen in Art & Literature
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 v...
Theseus, the legendary Athenian hero and early king of that city, captured Helen when she was a child and gave her to his mother to look after until she reached womanhood. The girl, who we are told was fond of wrestling and hunting, was then rescued by her brothers, the Dioscuri. The latter invaded Attica for the purpose, and Theseus was forced to ...
For the Greeks, the origins of the Trojan War went back to one particular event. At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris, the goddess of strife, offered a golden apple to the most beautiful of the goddesses of Olympia. Zeus invited the handsome Trojan prince Paris (also called Alexandros) to be the judge and decide between three choices: Athena, ...
The main source for our knowledge of the Trojan War and the most popular version of the story is presented by Homer in his Iliad, an epic poem written sometime in the 8th century BCE, and which was based on older oral legends. According to this version, a massive army of many Greek states sailed for Troy and laid siege to the city until Helen was r...
Menelaus and Helen return to Greece, stopping off at various places along the way. These events are told by Homer, this time in his Odyssey. First, the couple is dashed against the rocks of Crete in a storm. Next, arriving in Egypt, the couple spends many years there. Unable to gain favourable winds to get home, Menelaus makes trips to Cyprus and t...
Rather at odds with her standing in Greek literature, Helen was worshipped as divine at certain Greek sites. Scholars are broadly in agreement that Helen must first have been a goddess and then a semi-divine human figure. It may be that the myths of her abductions were an explanation of the goddess' temporary absences from her cult sites. Rhodes an...
Helen and the Trojan War were very popular subjects in many other examples of Classical literature besides Homer. For example, she is featured in Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Virgil's Aeneid. In the 5th-century BCE tragedian Euripides' Trojan Women, Helen appears in a trial before the captured women of Troy and defends her behaviour. Helen's chief defe...
- Mark Cartwright
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May 15, 2019 · Learn about Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in ancient Greece and the cause of the Trojan War. Discover her early life, her marriages, and her role in Homer's "Iliad" and other sources.
Dec 8, 2022 · Learn about Helen of Troy, the daughter of Zeus and Leda, who became the cause of the Trojan War. Explore her etymology, epithets, attributes, and personality in Greek and Roman sources.
Helen or Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus and Leda in Greek mythology, although her putative father was Tyndareus. A twin sister of Clytemnestra, she also had the twin brothers Castor and Pollux, also known as the Dioscuri. She was considered to be the most beautiful woman in the known world.
