After the fall of Troy, Menelaus recovered Helen and brought her home. Menelaus was a prominent figure in the
After the Greeks defeated Troy, Menelaus returned to Sparta with Helen. However, the journey home was very difficult because he had neglected to offer sacrifices to the Trojan gods. The story of the voyage is told in Homer's Odyssey]. When Menelaus died, he became immortal because he had married a daughter of Zeus.
Menelaus and Helen then returned to Sparta, where they lived happily until their deaths.
Menelaus After Troy
All sources say that they both survived the war and most say that they were reunited. The Odyssey finds Menelaus and Helen living together in Sparta again, with Menelaus having forgiven his wife for her infidelity.
Assisted by Aphrodite, Paris convinced Helen to leave her husband and took her back with him to Troy. Menelaus and Agamemnon went after them, and the war that resulted lasted for ten years. Finally, due to Odysseus' craftiness in devising the Trojan horse, the Trojans were defeated and Helen was returned to Menelaus.
When Menelaus and Paris fight, Aphrodite intervenes to save her protege Paris and Menelaus survives. Menelaus is wounded during the later fighting but is healed. Not only does Menelaus survive, but he is one of the few Greek leaders to survive the Trojan War and the trip home, even if it took eight years.
According to the Odyssey, Menelaus had only one child by Helen, a daughter Hermione, and an illegitimate son Megapenthes by a slave. Other sources mention other sons of Menelaus by either Helen, or slaves.
So Helen's daughter may have been murdered to get her mother back. Most versions of Helen's tale, though, feature Hermione as Helen's only child. In the eyes of the heroic Greeks, that would've made Helen a failure at her one and only job: producing a male child for her husband.
Ultimately, Paris was killed in action, and in Homer's account Helen was reunited with Menelaus, though other versions of the legend recount her ascending to Olympus instead. A cult associated with her developed in Hellenistic Laconia, both at Sparta and elsewhere; at Therapne she shared a shrine with Menelaus.
Paris appeared. As was customary by the laws of hospitality in ancient Greece, they gave him lodging and entertained him with banquets and gifts. Paris and Helen fell madly in love from the moment they met. Helen escaped with Paris and together they went to Troy.
Helen was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta (a fact Aphrodite neglected to mention), so Paris had to raid Menelaus's house to steal Helen from him—according to some accounts, she fell in love with Paris and left willingly.
Helen's Husbands
Agamemnon and Menelaus were sons of King Atreus of Mycenae and were therefore referred to as Atrides.
Odysseus had come up with a plan for the Greeks to get into the city of Troy by hiding in a wooden horse. Why didn't Menelaus go right home after the Trojan War? The gods had caused a wind to blow him to Egypt.
Troy has fallen. But there is still hope for the Trojans' survival – Aeneas, the son of King Priam's cousin, escapes the city with his old father, his young son and a band of Trojan refugees. Aeneas' story is told in Virgil's Aeneid.
In the Odyssey, Nestor and those who were part of his army had safely returned to Pylos, having chosen to leave Troy immediately after plundering the city rather than staying behind with Agamemnon to appease Athena, who was angered by the heinous actions of some of the Greeks (probably Ajax the Lesser).
Orestes the son of Agamemnon then marries Hermione, Menelaus' daughter and so the two cities of Mycenae and Sparta were united under a single king. When Menelaus left this earth, he was succeeded as king of Sparta by Orestes.
The goddess of sex, love, and passion is Aphrodite, and she is considered the most beautiful Greek goddess in Mythology. There are two versions of how Aphrodite was born.
Helen had a number of children by Paris, but none survived infancy. Paris died in the Trojan War, and Helen married his brother Deiphobus (pronounced dee-IF-oh-buhs). After the Greeks won the war, she was reunited with Menelaus, and she helped him kill Deiphobus. Then Helen and Menelaus set sail for Sparta.
What did Helen look like? Today's movies and paintings make her a blonde, but ancient Greek paintings show her as a brunette. Homer merely tells us she was “white-armed, long robed, and richly tressed,” leaving the rest up to our imagination. Ancient artist's rendering of Helen, with Eros urging her on.
According to the second story, after Menelaus' death at an advanced age, Helen's stepsons send her to exile to Rhodes. Polyxo (the Rhodian queen) hangs Helen in revenge for her husband's death during the Trojan War.
The oddness of the situation comes down to this: technically, Paris and Helen's marriage was divinely sanctioned by Aphrodite and at no point did any of the gods dispute that. As such, Priam did not really have the right to send Helen back to Sparta without Paris.
Achilles, distraught and wanting to avenge the death of his friend Patroclus, returns to the war and kills Hector. He drags Hector's body behind his chariot to the camp and then around the tomb of Patroclus. Aphrodite and Apollo, however, preserve the body from corruption and mutilation.
Hermione eventually joined her parents in Elysium. A scholiast for Nemean X says that, according to Ibycus, Hermione married Diomedes after his apotheosis and that he now lives with her uncles, the Dioscuri, as an immortal god.
Neoptolemus would eventually be killed by Orestes, who took Hermione for his wife. Two sons of Helen and Menelaus are occasionally mentioned, Nicostratus and Plisthenes, though Nicostratus may have been the son of a concubine, Pieris. A second concubine, Tereis, would provide Menelaus with another son, Megapenthes.
One of the key lessons we can learn from Helen of Troy is the importance of effective communication in leadership. In the myth, Helen's beauty is said to have caused a great deal of tension and strife between the Greek and Trojan peoples.