Tag: Athens

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The Menelaion: A Local Manifestation of a Pan-Hellenic Phenomenon

Sparta, the mythological birthplace and home of the Homeric heroine, was alleged to have worshiped her at two sites, at a shrine within the polis and at a shrine several kilometers outside the polis.8 We know very little about the former shrine, but the latter has been archaeologically attested; the partial walls and foundations of a fifth-century BCE monument to Helen of Sparta and her husband Menelaos, known as the Menelaion, have been recovered on a ridge near the west bank of the Eurotas.