Paris

son of King Priam of Troy, was a beautiful youth, but—as his name indicates (see Bar)—was a firebrand, and a di olute seducer. He became the guest of Menelaos, king of Argos, to whom the beautiful Helen was married; she and Paris, were aided by Aphrodité to flee together. Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, born from the swan’s egg, and sister of the divine twins, and of Clutemnestra; she had one daughter Hermione. Menelaos and his allies besieged Troy, and Paris—called also Alexander (“the choicest of men ”)—after escaping from the wronged husband in a cloud spread over him by Aphrodité, was finally slain by the arrow of Hérakleés. Helen is said to have then married his elder brother Deiphobos; but, after the fall of Troy, she was taken back by Menelaos to his palace at Argos, which “shone in splendour like the sun and moon,” Paris indeed is equally a mythical deity of light with Helen. Like other sun-heroes he had been exposed (on Mt Ida) and nourished by a shebear and a shepherd. Later legends (in Euripidés) say that Paris and Helen were driven by storms to Egypt, on their way to Troy: that she was here held by the king, and afterwards recovered by Menelaos when returning from Troy, he also being driven to Egypt by storms: so that only a spectral Helen actually accompanied Paris to Troy. Helen is also said to have been carried to Attika (or otherwise to Hades) by Théseus, and to have been rescued by her brothers—which recalls Babylonian myths (see Hel) and the Keltik Diarmed and Graine. Again she is made the mother of I phi gene i a, whom the Taurians sacrificed to Artemis when Helen went there. But the tombs of Helen and Menelaos were shown at Therapne, a little to the N. of Argos. 253