Even today, few characters from Greek mythology capture the imagination as much as the perpetually ambiguous Helen of Troy. There were even versions of the myth in which Helen remained loyal to Menelaus and did not sail to Troy at all. Some have seen her as haughty and vain, others as romantic and long-suffering. Sure enough, when Helen left her Greek husband Menelaus for the handsome Trojan prince Paris, war did break out: the Greeks fought the Trojans for ten long years to get Helen back.Įver since antiquity, poets, readers, and scholars have offered contradictory interpretations of Helen. She had so many suitors that her foster father Tyndareus feared a war would erupt over her hand. Helen quickly became known as the most beautiful woman in the world. Helen’s siblings included the heroic twins Castor and Polydeuces (also known as the Dioscuri) and the murderous Clytemnestra.
She was the daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Leda, a mortal woman and the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus. The woman who came to be known as Helen of Troy was actually born Helen of Sparta.
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