Helĕna

, the most beautiful woman of her age, sprung from one of the eggs which Leda the wife of king Tyndarus brought forth after her amour with Jupiter metamorphosed into a swan. See: Leda . According to some authors, Helen was daughter of Nemesis by Jupiter, and Leda was only her nurse; and to reconcile this variety of opinions, some imagine that Nemesis and Leda are the same persons. Her beauty was so universally admired, even in her infancy, that These us, with his friend Pirithous, carried her away before she had attained her 10th year, and concealed her at Aphidnæ, under the care of his mother Æthra. Her brothers Castor and Pollux recovered her by force of arms, and she returned safe and unpolluted to Sparta, her native country. There existed, however, a tradition recorded by Pausanius, that Helen was of nubile years when carried away by These us, and that she had a daughter by her ravisher, who was entrusted to the care of Clytemnestra. This violence offered to her virtue did not in the least diminish, but it rather augmented, her fame, and her hand was eagerly solicited by the young princes of Greece. The most celebrated of her suitors were Uly es son of Laertes, Anti loch us son of Nestor, Sthenelus son of Capaneus, Diomedes son of Tydeus, A mph i loch us son of Cteatus, Meges son of Phileus, Agapenor son of Ancæus, Thalpius son of Eurytus, Mnestheus son of Peteus, Schedius son of Epistrophus, Polyxenus son of Agasthenes, A mph i loch us son of Amphiaraus, Ascalaphus and Ialmus sons of the god Mars, Ajax son of Oileus, Eumelus son of Admetus, Polypœtes son of Pirithous, Elphenor son of Chalcodon, Podalirius and Machaon sons of Æsculapius, Leonteus son of Coronus, Phi loc tetes son of Pœan, Protesilaus son of Iphiclus, Eurypilus son of Evemon, Ajax and Teucer sons of Telamon, Patroclus son of Menœtius, Menelaus son of Atreus, Thoas, Idomeneus, and Merion. Tyndarus was rather alarmed than pleased at the sight of such a number of illustrious princes who eagerly solicited each to become his son-in-law. He knew that he could not prefer one without displeasing all the rest, and from this perplexity he was at last drawn by the artifice of Uly es, who began to be already known in Greece by his prudence and sagacity. This prince, who clearly saw that his pretensions to Helen would not probably meet with succe in opposition to so many rivals, proposed to extricate Tyndarus from all his difficulties if he would promise him his niece Penelope in marriage. Tyndarus consented, and Uly es advised the king to bind, by a solemn oath, all the suitors, that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice which Helen should make of one among them; and engage to unite together to defend her person and character, if ever any attempts were made to ravish her from the arms of her husband. The advice of Uly es was followed, the princes consented, and Helen fixed her choice upon Menelaus and married him. Hermione was the early fruit of this union, which continued for three years with mutual happine . After this, Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, came to Lacedæmon on pretence of sacrificing to Apollo. He was kindly received by Menelaus, but shamefully abused his favours, and in his absence in Crete he corrupted the fidelity of his wife Helen, and persuaded her to follow him to Troy, B.C. 1198. At his return Menelaus, highly sensible of the injury which he had received, a embled the Grecian princes, and reminded them of their solemn promises. They resolved to make war against the Trojans, but they previously sent amba adors to Priam to demand the restitution of Helen. The influence of Paris at his father’s court prevented the restoration, and the Greeks returned home without receiving the satisfaction they required. Soon after their return their combined forces a embled and sailed for the coast of Asia. The behaviour of Helen during the Trojan war is not clearly known. Some a ert that she had willingly followed Paris, and that she warmly supported the cause of the Trojans; while others believe that she always sighed after her husband, and cursed the day in which she had proved faithle to his bed. Homer represents her as in the last instance, and some have added that she often betrayed the schemes and resolutions of the Trojans, and secretly favoured the cause of Greece. When Paris was killed in the ninth year of the war, she voluntarily married Deiphobus, one of Priam’s sons, and when Troy was taken she made no scruple to betray him, and to introduce the Greeks into his chamber, to ingratiate herself with Menelaus. She returned to Sparta, and the love of Menelaus forgave the errors which she had committed. Some, however, say that she obtained her life even with difficulty from her husband, whose resentment she had kindled by her infidelity. After she had lived for some years in Sparta, Menelaus died, and she was driven from Peloponnesus by Megapenthes and Nicostratus, the illegitimate sons of her husband, and she retired to Rhodes, where at that time Polyxo, a native of Argos, reigned over the country. Polyxo remembered that her widowhood originated in Helen, and that her husband Tlepolemus had been killed in the Trojan war, which had been caused by the debaucheries of Helen, therefore she meditated revenge. While Helen retired one day to bathe in the river, Polyxo disguised her attendants in the habits of furies, and sent them with orders to murder her enemy. Helen was tied to a tree and strangled, and her misfortunes were afterwards remembered, and the crimes of Polyxo expiated by the temple which the Rhodians raised to Helen Dendritis, or tied to a tree . There is a tradition mentioned by Hero dot us, which says that Paris was driven, as he returned from Sparta, upon the coast of Egypt, where Proteus king of the country expelled him from his dominions for his ingratitude to Menelaus, and confined Helen. From that circumstance, therefore, Priam informed the Grecian amba adors that neither Helen nor her po e ions were in Troy, but in the hands of the king of Egypt. In spite of this a ertion the Greeks besieged the town and took it after 10 years’ siege, and Menelaus by visiting Egypt, as he returned home, recovered Helen at the court of Proteus, and was convinced that the Trojan war had been undertaken on very unjust and unpardonable grounds. Helen was honoured after death as a godde , and the Spartans built her a temple at Therapne, which had the power of giving beauty to all the deformed women that entered it. Helen, according to some, was carried into the island of Leuce after death, where she married Achilles, who had been one of her warmest admirers. The age of Helen has been a matter of deep inquiry among the chronologists. If she was born of the same eggs as Castor and Pollux, who accompanied the Argonauts in their expedition against Colchis about 35 years before the Trojan war, according to some, she was no le than 60 years old when Troy was reduced to ashes, supposing that her brothers were only 15 when they embarked with the Argonauts. But she is represented by Homer so incomparably beautiful during the siege of Troy, that though seen at a ♦ distance she influenced the counsellors of Priam by the brightne of her charms; therefore we must suppose, with others, that her beauty remained long undiminished, and was extinguished only at her death. Pausanias , bk. 3 , ch. 19 , . — Apollo dor us , bk. 3 , ch. 10 , . — Hyginus , fable 77.— Hero dot us , bk. 2 , ch. 112 .— Plutarch , These us , . — Cicero , de Officiis , bk. 3 .— Horace , bk. 3 , ode 3.— Dictys Cretensis , bk. 1 , . — Quintus Smyrnæus , chs. 10, 13, . — Homer , Iliad , bk. 2 , & Ody ey , bks. 4 & 15.――A young woman of Sparta, often confounded with the daughter of Leda. As she was going to be sacrificed, because the lot had fallen upon her, an eagle came and carried away the knife of the priest, upon which she was released, and the barbarous custom of offering human victims was abolished.――An island on the coast of Attica, where Helen came after the siege of Troy. Pliny , bk. 4 , ch. 12 .――A daughter of the emperor Const an tine, who married Julian.――The mother of Const an tine. She died in her 80th year, A.D. 328. ♦ ‘distane’ replaced with ‘distance’