The Abduction of Helen
In brief
- Helen, said to be the most beautiful woman alive, was the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta.
- The Trojan prince Paris, bribed by Aphrodite's promise of the world's most beautiful woman, took Helen back to Troy with him.
- Menelaus called on Helen's former suitors, bound by an old oath, to help him retrieve her, launching the ten-year Trojan War.
Helen's hand in marriage had once drawn suitors from every kingdom in Greece, each afraid the others would go to war over her. To prevent that, they swore an oath: whoever she married, all the rest would defend that marriage if it was ever threatened. Helen chose Menelaus, king of Sparta.
Years later, the Trojan prince Paris was asked to judge which goddess was the fairest (Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite) in a contest that became known as the Judgement of Paris. Aphrodite won his vote by promising him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, already married.
Paris traveled to Sparta as a guest of Menelaus and left with Helen, whether by seduction or outright abduction depending on the telling. Menelaus returned home to find his wife gone and his hospitality betrayed.
Furious, Menelaus invoked the old suitors' oath, and his brother Agamemnon rallied the combined kings of Greece into the largest fleet the Aegean had ever seen. A face, and a broken promise, had become an army, and Troy would burn for it within ten years.
