Mortal king of Sparta; husband of Helen; younger brother of Agamemnon. The injured-husband whose call to honor the Tyndareus-oath assembled the Greek coalition for Troy. Marked by Homer with a moderate, somewhat passive heroism — a competent but second-tier warrior, eclipsed in martial reputation by Diomedes, Ajax, and Achilles, but distinguished by his special claim on Zeus's daughter that earns him Elysium without dying. Father by Helen of Hermione (Iliad/Odyssey), and in non-Homeric traditions of Nicostratus, Aethiolas, Maraphius, and Pleisthenes; by the slave Pieris of Megapenthes.