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Helen of Troy
Helen of Troy (sometimes called Helen of Sparta) is a figure from Greek mythology whose elopement with (or abduction by) the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the Trojan War. Helen was the wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and considered...
Definition
Helen (Play)
Helen is a Greek tragedy by Euripides (c. 484-407 BCE). It is usually thought to have first been performed at the Great Dionysia of 412 BCE and was part of the trilogy that included Euripides' lost Andromeda. Helen recounts an unusual version...
Definition
Troy
Troy is the name of the Bronze Age city attacked in the Trojan War, a popular story in the mythology of ancient Greece, and the name given to the archaeological site in the north-west of Asia Minor (now Turkey) which has revealed a large...
Definition
Menelaus
Menelaus (also Menelaos) is a figure from ancient Greek mythology and literature who was the king of Sparta and the husband of beautiful Helen, whose abduction by the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the legendary Trojan War. The story is...
Definition
Trojan War
The Trojan War was fought between Greeks and the defenders of the city of Troy in Anatolia sometime in the late Bronze Age. The story has grabbed the imagination for millennia but a conflict between Mycenaeans and Hittites may well have occurred...
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Helen of Troy
A detail from an Attic red-figure krater showing Helen of Troy. Made c. 450 BCE. (Louvre, Paris)
Definition
Iliad
Homer's Iliad describes the final year of the Trojan War, a legendary conflict between an alliance of Greek cities and the city of Troy in Anatolia. It was probably written in the 8th century BCE after a long oral tradition. The Greeks themselves...
Definition
Leda
Leda is a figure from Greek mythology who was famously seduced by Zeus when he took the form of a swan. She was a queen of Sparta and mother of beautiful Helen who sparked the Trojan War, and the Dioscuri twins. Leda and the swan was a popular...
Image
Menelaus & Helen
A detail of an Attic red-figure hydria, c. 480 BCE, showing the Spartan king reunited with his wife Helen of Troy after the Trojan war. (Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)
Video
Helen of Troy, the Catalyst for the Trojan War
The story of Helen of Troy, and the Trojan war specifically, is best known from the Iliad, by Homer, after the abduction by Paris of Troy, which was ultimately the catalyst for the ten-year Trojan War. The most common version of the birth...