Helen
Greek · demigod · heroic age · Recorded classification
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 daughter of Helen
- Maraphius
- Nicostratus
- Pleisthenes
Variant accounts
- eidolon-tradition-Helen-stayed-in-Egypt
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 'Helen of the Tree' — cult-title at Rhodes, where she was hanged from a tree by Polyxo's serving-womenPausanias 3.19.10 (primary)
- Ἀργείη 'the Argive' — standing Homeric epithet of HelenHomer, Iliad 2.161 (primary)
- Διὸς θυγάτηρ daughter of ZeusHomer, Iliad 3.426; Odyssey 4.227 (primary)
- καλλίκομος lovely-hairedHomer, Iliad 3.329 (primary)
Relations
- sibling: ClytemnestraReciprocal of the Atreid/Trojan-cluster genealogy.
- lover: DeiphobusReciprocal of the Atreid/Trojan-cluster genealogy.
- sibling: PolluxApollod. 3.10.7 (primary)
- sibling: CastorHalf-sibling — same mother, mortal Tyndareus-fathered.Apollod. 3.10.7 (primary)
- spouse: MenelausHom. Il. and Od. passim (primary)
- lover: ParisCarried off (or eloped) to Troy after Paris's Judgment-of-Aphrodite reward.Hom. Il. 3, 6 (primary)
- lover: TheseusFirst abduction at age 7 (Plutarch). The Stesichorean variant tradition has the abduction non-platonic, producing Iphigenia.Plut. Thes. 31; Apollod. Epit. 1.23; Stesich. fr.; Paus. 2.22.6-7 (primary)