Editing Menelaus (section)

== Mythology ==

===Accession and reign===
Although early authors, such as [[Aeschylus]], refer in passing to Menelaus's early life, detailed sources are quite late, post-dating 5th-century BC Greek [[tragedy]].<ref>The chief sources for Menelaus's life before the Trojan War are [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]]'s ''Fabulae'' and the Epitome of the ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]''.</ref> According to these sources, Menelaus's father, [[Atreus]], had been feuding with his brother [[Thyestes]] over the throne of [[Mycenae]]. After a back-and-forth struggle that featured [[adultery]], [[incest]], and [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]], Thyestes gained the throne after his son [[Aegisthus]] murdered [[Atreus]]. As a result, Atreus' sons, Menelaus and [[Agamemnon]], went into exile. They first stayed with King [[Polypheides]] of [[Sicyon]], and later with King [[Oeneus]] of [[Calydon]]. But when they thought the time was ripe to dethrone Mycenae's hostile ruler, they returned. Assisted by King [[Tyndareus]] of [[Sparta]], they drove Thyestes away, and Agamemnon took the [[throne]] for himself.

When it was time for [[Tyndareus]]' stepdaughter [[Helen of Troy|Helen]] to marry, [[Suitors of Helen|many kings and princes]] came to seek her hand. Among the contenders were [[Odysseus]], [[Menestheus]], [[Ajax the Great]], [[Patroclus]], and [[Idomeneus]]. Most offered opulent gifts. Tyndareus would accept none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the suitors away for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. Odysseus promised to solve the problem in a satisfactory manner if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Tyndareus's niece [[Penelope]], the daughter of [[Icarius]]. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband in any quarrel. Then it was decreed that straws were to be drawn for Helen's hand. The suitor who won was Menelaus (Tyndareus, not to displease the mighty Agamemnon offered him another of his daughters, [[Clytaemnestra]]).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mythologia.8m.com/trojanwar1.html |title=Τρωικοσ Πολεμοσ - Ελληνικη Μυθολογια Και Πολιτισμοσ |access-date=2011-10-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001224939/http://www.mythologia.8m.com/trojanwar1.html |archive-date=2011-10-01 }}</ref> The rest of the suitors swore their oaths, and Helen and Menelaus were married, Menelaus becoming a ruler of Sparta with Helen after Tyndareus and [[Leda (mythology)|Leda]] abdicated the thrones.

Their supposed palace (ἀνάκτορον) has been discovered (the excavations started in 1926 and continued until 1995) in [[Pellana]], [[Laconia]], to the north-west of modern (and classical) Sparta.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.asxetos.gr/pedia/lexika/elliniko-lexiko/diavlitikos-23440.html|title=Διαβλητικός|last=admin}}</ref> Other archaeologists consider that [[Pellana]] is too far away from other Mycenaean centres to have been the "capital of Menelaus".<ref>Mee & Spawforth (2001), p. 229</ref>

According to tradition Menelaus founded the port-city [[Menelai Portus]] on the coast of [[Marmarica]] in Northern Africa.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:id=menelai-portus-harpers Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Menelai Portus]</ref>

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| before = [[Tyndareus]]<br>(second reign)
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| title = [[List of kings of Sparta|King of Sparta]]
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| after = [[Orestes]]
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===Trojan War===
{{Main article|Trojan War}}
[[Image:Helen Menelaus Louvre G424.jpg|right|thumb|Menelaus regains Helen, detail of an Attic red-figure crater, c. 450–440 BC, found in [[Gnatia]] (now Egnazia, [[Italy]]).]]
According to legend, in return for awarding her a golden apple inscribed "to the fairest," [[Aphrodite]] promised [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]] the most beautiful woman in all the world. After concluding a diplomatic mission to Sparta during the latter part of which Menelaus was absent to attend the funeral of his maternal grandfather [[Catreus]] in [[Crete]], Paris ran off to Troy with Helen despite his brother [[Hector]]'s prohibition. Invoking the oath of [[Tyndareus]], Menelaus and [[Agamemnon]] raised a fleet of a thousand ships and went to Troy to secure Helen's return; the Trojans refused, providing a ''[[casus belli]]'' for the [[Trojan War]].

[[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' is the most comprehensive source for Menelaus's exploits during the Trojan War. In Book 3, Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen's return. Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, Aphrodite spirits Paris away inside the walls of Troy. In Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel's winner, [[Athena]] inspires the Trojan [[Pandarus]] to shoot Menelaus with his bow and arrow. However, Athena never intended for Menelaus to die and she protects him from the arrow of Pandarus.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Iliad of Homer|last1 = Homer|publisher = University of Chicago Press|year = 2011|isbn = 9780226470498|location = Chicago|pages = 116–17|last2 = Lattimore|first2 = Richmond|last3 = Martin|first3 = Richard}}</ref> Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended ''[[aristeia]]'' as the hero retrieves the corpse of Patroclus from the battlefield.

According to [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], Menelaus killed eight men in the war, and was one of the Greeks hidden inside the [[Trojan Horse]]. During the sack of Troy, Menelaus killed [[Deiphobus]], who had married Helen after the death of Paris.

There are four versions of Menelaus's and Helen's reunion on the night of the sack of Troy:
*Menelaus sought out Helen in the conquered city. Raging at her infidelity, he raised his sword to kill her, but as he saw her weeping at his feet, begging for her life, Menelaus's wrath instantly left him. He took pity on her and decided to take her back as his wife.
*Menelaus resolved to kill Helen, but her irresistible beauty prompted him to drop his sword and take her back to his ship "to punish her at Sparta", as he claimed.<ref>''Andromache'', 629–31.</ref>
*According to the ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'', Menelaus raised his sword in front of the [[temple]] in the central square of Troy to kill her, but his wrath went away when he saw her rending her clothes in anguish, revealing her naked breasts.
*A similar version by [[Stesichorus]] in "Ilion's Conquest" narrated that Menelaus surrendered her to his soldiers to stone her to death, but when she ripped the front of her robes, the Achaean warriors were stunned by her beauty and the stones fell harmlessly from their hands as they stared at her.

===After the war===
[[File:Patroclus corpse MAN Firenze.jpg|thumb|Menelaus and [[Meriones (mythology)|Meriones]] lifting [[Patroclus]]' corpse on a cart while [[Odysseus]] looks on; [[alabaster]] urn, [[Etruscan art]]work from [[Volterra]], 2nd century BC]]
Book 4 of the ''Odyssey'' provides an account of Menelaus's return from Troy and his homelife in Sparta. When visited by Odysseus's son [[Telemachus]], Menelaus recounts his voyage home. As happened to many Greeks, Menelaus's homebound fleet was blown by storms to Crete and Egypt where they were becalmed, unable to sail away. They trapped [[Proteus]] and forced him to reveal how to make the voyage home. Once back in Sparta, he and Helen are shown to be reconciled and have a harmonious married life—he holding no grudge at her having run away with a lover and she feeling no restraint in telling anecdotes of her life inside besieged Troy. Menelaus does seem to be pained that he and Helen have no male heir, and is shown to be fond of [[Megapenthes (son of Menelaus)|Megapenthes]] and [[Nicostratus (mythology)|Nicostratus]], his sons by slave women. According to Euripides' ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]'', Menelaus is reunited with Helen after death, on the [[Fortunate Isles|Isle of the Blessed]].<ref>Line 1675.</ref>