Ten years after arriving back at Sparta, Helen and Menelaos were visited by Telemachos (Telemachus) who was seeking news of his father, Odysseus, who was last seen at Troy and had not returned to his home on the island of Ithaka (Ithaca). Telemachos was traveling with one of King Nestor's sons named Peisistratos (Peisistratus) ... both young men were welcomed by Helen and Menelaos because Nestor and Odysseus had been loyal comrades of Menelaos during the Trojan War and fought hard for Helen's freedom. When he first saw Helen, Telemachos thought that she looked as divine as the goddess Artemis.
As Menelaos recounted the stories of the war and the death of Peisistratos's brother Antilochos (Antilochus), the men began to weep. Helen discretely mixed a calming drug she had acquired in Egypt into the wine the men were drinking. The drug worked as prescribed ... the king and his two guests resumed their composure and were able to cope with their grief without tears.
When Telemachos and Peisistratos were preparing to leave Sparta, Helen gave Telemachos a shining robe which she had woven herself. She told him that when he found a woman to marry, he should give the robe to her to wear during the marriage ceremony. In the sky above, Helen and Telemachos observed an eagle attack a goose ... Helen knew that it was an omen from her father Zeus which was meant for Telemachos. She told him that it was a prophecy indicating that Odysseus would eventually return to his home and family.
The Children of Helen
In The Iliad, we are told emphatically that Helen had only one child, a daughter named Hermione, because the Immortals decreed that she would have only one child. Although Hermione is not mentioned in The Iliad, we can assume that she was born before Helen left Sparta with Alexandros (Paris) because when we encounter her in The Odyssey, Hermione is preparing to marry Achilles's son, Neoptolemus (Neoptolemos).
When Telemachos visited Sparta seeking news of his father Odysseus, he arrived as Hermione was departing to marry Neoptolemus. Menelaos's son Megapenthes who was born to a slave women, was preparing to marry a Spartan woman who is only identified as the daughter of Alektor (Alector).
If Hermione was born before Helen left Sparta with Alexandros, she would have been approximately twenty years old when Telemachos arrived at Sparta. However, if Hermione was born after the Trojan War was over, she would have been only ten years old when she was departing to marry Neoptolemus.
In a text written after The Iliad and The Odyssey, Catalogues of Women and Eoiae, we are informed that Helen and Menelaos had a son named Nikostratos (Nicostratus) who is described as a scion of Ares (god of War). We are also told that Helen and Menelaos also had another son named Pleisthenes. There is no other mention of Nikostratos or Pleisthenes but after the death of Menelaos, Megapenthes drove Helen from Sparta. We might assume that Megapenthes then became the king of Sparta.
While at Troy, Helen is reputed to have had a son with Alexandros named Aganus. Using all the available sources, Helen is said to have had four children: Hermione, Nikostratos, Pleisthenes and Aganus.
What Really Happened?
The story of Helen and the Trojan War as told in The Iliad and The Odyssey seems to be the final word as to what happened in those distant times but there is another version to the story which needs to be considered.
The historian Herodotus lived circa 484-425 BCE and when he visited Egypt, he was told a completely different story about Helen and the fall of Troy.
Herodotus relates that after fleeing Sparta, Alexandros and Helen did not sail directly to Troy. Contrary winds forced them to Egypt and into the Nile River. There was a shrine to Herakles (Hercules) in that part of Egypt where slaves could seek sanctuary. Alexandros's slaves deserted their master and with the protection afforded by the shrine of Herakles, denounced Alexandros and told the local governor the circumstances under which Helen had been taken from her home.
When King Proteus of Egypt heard the story, he had Alexandros and Helen brought before him for judgment. As Proteus questioned Alexandros as to how he and Helen came to be in Egypt, Alexandros lied but the slaves revealed the truth to the king.
Proteus declared that Helen would be given asylum in Egypt but Alexandros would be required to leave Egypt within three days. Alexandros left Egypt and returned to Troy alone. When the Greeks besieged Troy, the Trojans truthfully informed them that Helen was not there but the Greeks did not believe them until after they had sacked the city and saw the truth for themselves. Menelaos then went to Egypt and retrieved Helen. When Menelaos and Helen tried to sail from Egypt, they were forced back by northerly winds. Menelaos took two Egyptian children and sacrificed them in order to appease the Winds. The Egyptians were outraged and chased Menelaos to Libya but he was able to elude them and secretly return to Sparta.
Herodotus believed that the Immortals allowed the Greeks to destroy Troy in order to punish the Trojans for the foul deeds of Alexandros. Of course, we are more familiar with Homer's poetic version of Helen's plight. In The Iliad, Helen and Alexandros returned to Troy and when Menelaos demanded her return, Alexandros refused ... the ten year Trojan War began. After the fall of Troy, Helen was released from the enchantment of Aphrodite and resumed her marriage with Menelaos.
Helen's abduction was not an isolated historical event. The mainland Greeks and the Greeks who had colonized Asia Minor had a long history of kidnapping women from each other. A generation before the Trojan War, Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece, had taken Medeia (Medea) from her home and according to Herodotus, the failure to return Medeia was one of a series of events used to justify the kidnapping of Helen.
When Did Helen Live?
We cannot be exactly sure when Helen lived and died but we can make some assumptions:
Helen was at least thirteen when she was kidnapped by Theseus; Helen might have married Menelaos when she was as young as seventeen; Helen was married to Menelaos for at least one year before she went to Troy because they had a daughter named Hermione; Helen was at Troy for ten years which might make her approximately thirty years old when the war was over; Telemachos saw Helen at Sparta ten years after the end of the Trojan War which might make her approximately forty years old at that time.
Using the above crude calculations and assuming the Trojan War took place circa 1250 BCE, Helen would have been born circa 1270 BCE and lived at least until circa 1240 or 1230 BCE.
Helen is often incorrectly referred to Helen of Troy.
We of course refer to Helen as Helen of Troy but she was actually called Helen of Argos in The Iliad. It wasn't until well over a thousand years after the Trojan War that we encounter her as Helen of Troy. That name was used by some of the Athenian poets and I suspect that they did that to draw attention away from Helen's true origins in Sparta (Argos) and tried to transplant her fame and glory to Asia Minor where the Athenians had colonial settlements.
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Just too much Tehee. :))
Helen/HeH Len/Ελεν/The Beautiful Daughter of Zeus
Mulai dari awal
