Helen and Paris

Also called: Abduction of Helen, Helen of Troy

A legend handed down over the centuries.

A Greek myth told in the Cypria and the Iliad. When Paris carried off Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, to Troy, Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon gathered the kings of Greece for an expedition against Troy.

This Greek myth is outlined in the Cypria, and Homer’s Iliad sings of its consequences. Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, was the most beautiful woman in Greece. According to Apollodorus her suitors swore to defend the marriage of whoever won her, and she married Menelaus, king of Sparta. Paris, coming to Sparta as Aphrodite had promised, sailed off to Troy with Helen and much treasure while Menelaus was away. Ancient writers differed over whether Helen went willingly or was taken by force.

Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, invoked the old oath and gathered the Greek heroes — Achilles, Odysseus, Ajax and others. The “Catalogue of Ships” in Book 2 of the Iliad sings of more than a thousand ships. The poet Stesichorus and the historian Herodotus, however, tell another version in which Helen never reached Troy but stayed in Egypt.