Was Helen really to blame for the Trojan War – or just a scapegoat?
The question of Helen’s involvement in such a significant conflict clearly poses difficult questions – and has done ever since the age of Homer.
Helen of Troy Reloaded
Helen of Troy Reloaded By Lisa George and Anne Duncan Diotima: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World…
Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation
She is in her very essence a creature of myth – a concept, not a person. It is that concept, and its meaning for ancient Greek authors, that is my subject.
Isocrates
The main sources in Greek literature for the cult of Helen and/or Menelaus at Therapn? are Herodotus (6.61.3), Isocrates 10 (Encomium of Helen), and Pausanias (3.19.9-10). Isocrates is the one who speaks of joint-worship of Helen and Menelaus (10.63).
Hector and Iliad VI
Homer?s Iliad is the tale of the ninth year of the Trojan War, narrating events in both the Trojan city and the Achaean camp. The work is grand in its scope and remains character driven; for this reason we still discuss Achilles, Odysseus, Hector, and Paris as if they were real people.
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.