Helen
Greek · demigod · heroic age · demigod
Half-Olympian daughter of Zeus by Leda, queen of Sparta; born from an egg in the dominant Cypria tradition. The casus belli of the Trojan War: her abduction (or elopement) by Paris triggered the Tyndareus-oath obligation that brought all of Greece to Troy. The Iliad treats her with notable sympathy — Book 3's teichoscopia shows her grief and self-loathing on the Trojan walls; Book 24 her lament for Hector. The Stesichorus/Herodotus/Euripides eidolon tradition has the real Helen waiting in Egypt while a phantom went to Troy.
Parentage
Children
- Aethiolas
- Aganus
- Bunomus
- Corythus
- Helen the Younger
- Hermione
- Idaeus
- Iphigenia
- Maraphius
- Nicostratus
- Pleisthenes
Domains
- beauty supreme fated strife
- beauty
Powers
- Surpassing beauty that compels and ruins men
- Knowledge of Egyptian grief-banishing drugs
- Mimic the voices of others
Epithets
- Ἑλένη Δενδρῖτις
- Ἀργείη
- Διὸς θυγάτηρ
- καλλίκομος
Relations
- sibling: Clytemnestra
- lover: Deiphobus
- sibling: Pollux
- sibling: Castor
- spouse: Menelaus
- lover: Paris
- lover: Theseus