The Helen of Troy Story: A Face That Launched a Thousand Ships

| | January 23, 2025

Who was Helen of Troy?
Helen of Troy was a legendary beauty in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of the god Zeus and Leda, a mortal queen, and the wife of Menelaus, the King of Sparta. Paris, a prince of Troy, abducted her, the circumstances of which sparked the Trojan War.

What happened to Helen after Troy?
After the Trojan War, Helen returned to Sparta with her husband, Menelaus. There are several accounts of what happened to Helen immediately following the events of Troy, including her capture by Achaean forces, and nearly being killed by Menelaus in a fit of rage.

Where was Helen of Troy from?
Helen of Troy was from Sparta. She was born from an affair between Zeus and Leda, the Queen of the Spartans and the wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta. Thus, Helen was a Spartan. After her marriage to Menelaus from the House of Atreus, he became the King of Sparta.

When did the story of Helen of Troy happen?
The story of Helen of Troy happened during the late Bronze Age era of Mycenaean Greece (1750–1050 BCE). The supposed events of the Trojan War, as told in Homer’s epics, took place approximately 400–500 years before his time.

Why did Theseus kidnap Helen?
In myth, the hero Theseus kidnapped Helen because, as a demi-god, he thought he should have a fitting wife. Helen was about twelve years old when Theseus abducted her from Sparta, as he planned to keep her hostage until she was of marriageable age.

How did Helen of Troy die?
There are a handful of accounts regarding Helen’s death. Most consistently, she is hanged, or otherwise killed, for her part in the Trojan War. In the most famous iteration, she is hanged by the order of Polyxo, Queen of Rhodes, who lost her husband in the conflict.

Origins of Helen

The origins of Helen are simple yet significant in the Greek mythological narrative. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, a Spartan queen with Aetolian roots.

In other accounts, her mother is listed as Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, and Leda and her husband Tyndareus only raised her. This alternative parentage would foreshadow the harrowing future events of Troy’s conflict with the Achaeans.

Siblings of Helen through Leda include several other figures significant to the story of Troy.[1] All were children of Tyndareus, save for her brother Pollux, who was the son of Zeus:

  • Clytemnestra
  • The Dioscuri
    • Castor
    • Pollux (Polydeuces)
  • Timandra
  • Philonoe
  • Phoebe

Meanwhile, Helen’s siblings through Zeus are many. The following notable figures are Helen’s divine half-siblings who were involved in the Trojan War:

If, in fact, Nemesis was Helen’s mother instead of Leda, her siblings could include shadowy figures like the malevolent Telchines. Most interpretations of Nemesis consider her to be a virgin goddess, so accounts of any children of hers are few and far between.

The famous myth regarding Helen’s conception and birth, Leda and the Swan, notes that Zeus came to Leda disguised as a swan. Not that we expected anything normal and above board from the King of the Gods, but this particular encounter was among the more bizarre in Greek mythology.

Leda would bed her husband the same day, and go on to lay two eggs—because why not? Helen and Clytemnestra hatched from one egg. The twins Castor and Pollux hatched from the other.

Since Leda had relations with both Zeus and Tyndareus on the same day, Helen and Clytemnestra and Castor and Pollux were super-ancient examples of heteropaternal superfecundation: They were sets of twins, but they shared different fathers. Helen and Pollux were the children of Zeus, while Clytemnestra and Castor were the children of Tyndareus.[2] 

The earliest written record of Helen dates back to Homer’s eighth-century BCE epics, where she is the catalyst of the legendary Trojan conflict. She appears a handful of times in the books of the Iliad. Her character and its origin were explored by various ancient playwrights and scholars, who either sympathized with or condemned her.[3]

Helen’s Early Life and Marriage to Menelaus

As a princess and great beauty, Helen had a thrilling early life, to say the least. When she was a young girl, she was kidnapped by the hero Theseus. Though he kept her with the intent of marriage, her brothers, the Dioscuri, quickly retrieved her and brought her back to their homeland of Sparta.

It is safe to say Theseus quickly dropped any machinations of marrying the Spartan princess, especially when he had to contend with the Minotaur.

When Helen came of age, contests for her hand were hosted by Tyndareus of Sparta. Depending on the source, there could have been as many as forty-five suitors. The scholar Pseudo-Apollodorus listed thirty-one men in attendance; Hesiod’s fragments have twelve surviving names; and the Latin author Hyginus makes note of thirty-six.

The suitors would include various princes, kings, nobles, or men who acted as their representatives.

Tyndareus knew Helen’s hand was highly sought after, so much so that he was keenly aware that selecting a suitor could cause offense or conflict.

Thankfully, Odysseus was in attendance and knew he had little hope of winning favor. Odysseus offered to solve Tyndareus’s problem if the Spartan king would support his pursuit of his niece, Penelope, the daughter of Icarius.

On Odysseus’s suggestion, Tyndareus made each and every suitor swear an oath to defend the selected bridegroom if he were ever wronged. Thus, the Oath of Tyndareus, which would later be of considerable importance, was pledged.[4] 

Thereafter, legends account that straws were pulled to select the suitor. Menelaus won the draw to be Helen’s husband. To avoid offending Menelaus’s brother, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, Tyndareus offered him Clytemnestra. After Tyndareus abdicated, Menelaus became the King of Sparta, with Helen as the Queen of Sparta.

By Menelaus, she bore a daughter, Hermione, and potentially several other disputed children.

The Judgement of Paris and Abduction of Helen

Problems began brewing in the myth, The Judgement of Paris. To set the stage, the gods were attending the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. All things considered, it was a merry celebration. The only deity left out was Eris, the goddess of strife and discord.

Well, Eris did eventually show up. She wasn’t too pleased with the disrespect she was shown, however. In retaliation for the offense against her, Eris tossed the infamous Golden Apple of Discord between three vain goddesses: Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera.

Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who was renowned for his impartiality—also because Zeus definitely didn’t want to be the one to choose the fairest of the three.

As told by Homer, each goddess offered the young Paris something desirable. Hera offered him power by making him the king of Europe and Asia. Athena proposed granting him martial prowess. Aphrodite’s bid was somewhat more tantalizing: the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.

The choice, according to Paris, was an easy one. He chose Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, as the fairest of the three goddesses and earned the scorn of the other two.

At this point, Helen and Menelaus were happily married and none the wiser to the promise Aphrodite made to Paris. So, when a charming Trojan prince was welcomed as a guest in their home, they never could have foreseen the catastrophe that would follow.

Greek literature is inconclusive on Helen’s willingness to depart Sparta with Paris, with some seeing her flight as a betrayal to Menelaus. Others see her as a kidnapped victim who, because of women’s role in ancient Greece, had little agency.

However, recent studies into the lives of Spartan women challenge the notion that Helen was passive in her abduction. Homer suggests that Helen abandoned Menelaus to elope with Paris willingly, likely with the support of Aphrodite.

Helen and the Trojan War

Once Helen was taken by Paris, the whole of the Mediterranean was thrust into an unbearably long war. Since Menelaus’s honor and marriage were disrespected, the Oath of Tyndareus was called upon and all of Helen’s former suitors were drafted into war against the Trojans.

Agamemnon, Helen’s brother-in-law, was the commander of the Achaean forces, who were to invade and lay siege to Troy. The quest to get Menelaus’s wife back took ten years and in Homer’s epics, spanning multiple books.

During her decade-long stay in the city of Troy, Helen grew close to Paris’ father, King Priam, who occasionally referred to Helen as a “beloved child.” Priam was among a few characters who saw Helen as being blameless in the war, instead shifting their consternation to the gods.[5] 

Hector, Paris’s elder brother, also displayed kindness to Helen; however, he was extremely resentful of Paris for his taking of a married woman.

Helen’s relationships with Priam and Hector starkly contrast the relationship between Helen and Hecuba, Paris’ mother. Hecuba blamed Helen for the conflict and frequently voiced concerns about how it would impact her family.

Hecuba’s negative opinion of Helen is emphasized in Euripides’s play, The Trojan Women, wherein the former Queen of Troy petitions Menelaus to put Helen to death in the war’s aftermath.[6]

Overall, most people in Troy—especially within its palace—were against Helen’s stay in the city. No one could deny her beauty, but they also did not see why keeping her was worth the immense losses of war. In several later Greek pieces, Helen expresses the isolation she felt in Troy, since she was only shown kindness by a handful of people.

In the Odyssey, Helen confides in Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, that she had desired to return to Sparta for years after her abduction at the hands of Paris. Such is also suggested in the Iliad’s Book III, where upon hearing of a duel between Menelaus and Paris, Helen’s “heart . . . lit a flame of longing for her husband and her parents and her home.”

Helen’s Return to Sparta

Once Troy fell to the Greeks, Helen was among the captured women of the city. She was returned to Menelaus, who would have had her killed if not for her beauty and his love for her. While emotions ran high after the couple’s initial reunion, by the Odyssey they had wholly reconciled.

On the return voyage to Sparta, Helen and Menelaus—along with their entire fleet—were sent by storms to Crete and Egypt. Ultimately stranded, they had to coerce the sea god Proteus into telling them how to return home. They appeared to have a harmonious marriage after returning to Sparta, until Helen’s death.

In another version of the myth, one explored by Euripides in Helen, she never actually arrived in Troy. Instead, Helen found safe harbor in Egypt after her abduction and Paris reached his home city in the company of an apparition.

This variation would mean that the war waged against Troy was pointless; Helen never betrayed her husband and never actually arrived in the distant city.

Helen’s Symbolism and Legacy

Helen symbolized idealized human beauty. Her beauty inspired those around her to fall hopelessly in love and commit unspeakable acts of betrayal. While she is cemented in mythology as “the face that launched a thousand ships,” just how positive that legacy is remains up for debate.

As she is, Helen is a double-edged sword. To the Greeks and the Trojans, she was the root of the chaos and suffering they endured in the war. On the other side of things, to the men who loved her, having her as their bride was worth more than all the riches of a city.

Helen in Art and Literature

As a famous beauty, hundreds of artists have attempted to capture the likeness of Helen in their work. As this is incredibly difficult to accomplish (who is to say what ideal beauty is?) 

Helen has worn many faces over the years. She was a popular figure in ancient Greco-Roman frescoes and pottery, particularly in those detailing the scenes from the legendary war. Contemporary artists have attempted to depict Helen based on literary descriptions and society’s standards of beauty.

In Homer’s epic poems, Helen is frequently described as “white-armed” with “lovely hair.” Hesiod’s Works and Days notes that Helen was “fair-haired.” Both Homer and Hesiod’s descriptions of Helen take into account the ancient Greek standard of ideal beauty.

Meanwhile, the medieval Latin work Daretis Phrygii de excidio Troiae historia, a translated account of the fall of Troy from the perspective of a Trojan priest of Hephaestus, goes into slightly more detail: she was charming, naive, and had a mole between her brows.

In most literature, Helen’s beauty wasn’t what was significant—rather, it was the effect her beauty had on people that mattered. Thus, the features of Helen are mutable. Her character has appeared in several plays, most being tragedies:

  • Helen, Euripides
  • The Trojan Women, Euripides
  • Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare
  • Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe
  • Helen of Sparta, Jacob M. Appel

Contemporary films about the Trojan War take care to cast conventionally attractive women as Helen, though her personality and opinions on the war vary between films:

  • The Private Life of Helen of Troy, Alexander Korda
  • Sköna Helena, Gustaf Edgren
  • The Trojan Women, Michael Cacoyannis
  • Troy, Wolfgang Peterson

Modern novels are far more forgiving to Helen’s character. They often attempt to give insight and expand upon Helen as a complex character:

  • The Private Life of Helen of Troy, John Erskine
  • A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes
  • Daughters of Sparta, Claire Heywood
  • The Women of Troy, Pat Barker
  • Helen of Troy, Bettany Hughes

Wrapping Up the Story of Helen of Troy

For many years, there was only ever Helen of Sparta. Her infamous moniker “Helen of Troy” did not exist until after the legendary war.

The stories that revolve around Helen of Troy celebrate her complex, controversial character as shown in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other ancient works. Over the centuries, she has been depicted as both an adultress and a victim, simultaneously contriving and hapless. As it turns out, Helen isn’t a simple, straightforward character.

Throughout literature, both ancient and contemporary, Helen is made to be more than just a pretty face. She was a Spartan, a queen, a mother, and a wife. Her famed beauty exposes the deeper parts of the human experience—lust, greed, and betrayal—while probing Greece’s Age of Heroes and their relationships with the gods.

References

  1. The Fitzwilliam Museum. n.d. “Leda’s Children.” The Fitzwilliam Museum: Cambridge. Accessed January 7, 2025. https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-our-collection/highlights/context/stories-and-histories/leda-s-children.
  2. “LEDA – Spartan Queen of Greek Mythology.” n.d. Theoi Greek Mythology. Accessed January 7, 2025. https://www.theoi.com/Heroine/Leda.html.
  3. Burkin, Lily. 2024. “The Anatomy of a Misunderstood Woman: An Examination of Helen of Sparta.” Discentes: Penn’s Classical Studies Publication. https://web.sas.upenn.edu/discentes/2024/04/21/the-anatomy-of-a-misunderstood-woman/.
  4. Frazer, Sir James George. 1921. “Apollodorus, The Library.” Perseus Digital Library. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.10.9.
  5. Shepperd, J.T. 1933. “Helen with Priam (Homer’s ‘Iliad,’ III).” Greece & Rome 3 (7): 31–37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/641466.
  6. Sanders-Schneider, Ivy. “The Trojan Women Line 860–1059.” LitCharts LLC, February 9, 2018. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-trojan-women/line-860-1059.

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