Helen of Troy, the Catalyst for the Trojan War

Did you know that the Trojan War was said to be fought over a woman? Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and today's video is all about the most beautiful mortal woman in Greek mythology. A woman so beautiful that her existence was in essence the catalyst for the 10-year Trojan War. Today we're going to learn all about Helen of Troy. Don't forget the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up, subscribing to our channel and hitting that bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on any new uploads. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization and you can find us on Patreon, a brilliant site where you can support our work and receive exclusive benefits in return. Your support helps us create videos twice a week so make sure to check it out via the pop-up in the top corner of the screen or via the Patreon link down below. The most common version of the of the gods. Disguised as a swan, Zeus seduced Leta, who was married to Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and from their union came an egg from which Helen was born, along with her siblings Castor and Pollux, also known as Polydeuces, and Clytemnestra, who became the wife of Agamemnon and the queen of Mycenae. In other versions of the myth, Helen is the daughter of the goddess of retribution, Nemesis, but regardless of her parentage she was always born from an egg in Sparta. The imagery of Helen emerging from an egg has been identified on red figure pottery dating to the 4th century BCE from Apulia and Campania. One day Tyndareus was sacrificing to the gods but he forgot to honor Aphrodite and unsurprisingly she did not appreciate this The angered goddess promised that all of the daughters of Tyndareus would become infamous for their adultery. Although Helen and Clytemnestra weren't his daughters by birth, this curse affected them far more than it did Tyndareus. Helen was considered the most beautiful mortal woman even as a young girl when the hero Theseus captured her and brought her back to his mother to look after her until she reached adulthood. Helen was rescued from this abduction by her brothers and Theseus was forced to flee but what this tells us is that even as a young girl her beauty was a curse to her. This abduction was a popular decoration in red figure pottery from the archaic period, however her abduction by Paris which sparked the 10-year conflict known as the Trojan War as well as the image of her depicted alongside her husband Menelaus were popular on both black figure and red figure pottery during the classical period of Greece. The beautiful Helen was described by Hesiod as fair-haired Helen and Homer in his epics described her as Helen of the lovely hair, Helen queen among women, white-armed Helen but also as hateful Helen. The beautiful Helen obviously had many suitors but she ended up marrying Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon. Considering her beauty Tyndareus sacrificed a horse and then made all of the Greek leaders swear that Helen was rightfully Menelaus' wife and that they would protect his daughter from harm. This particular oath had some serious consequences when it came to Paris, the prince of Troy. From their union Helen and Menelaus had one daughter Hermione and three sons, Pleisthenes, The story of Helen and the Trojan War specifically is best known from the Iliad by Homer but she also features in the tragedian Aeschylus' Agamemnon and in the later Roman writer Virgil's Aeneid. The tragedian Euripides includes Helen in his tragedy Trojan Women and she appears in a trial before the captured women of Troy where she defends her behavior. She says that she was simply a plaything of the gods and defends against the charge of adultery in that she could not avoid her fate orchestrated by the gods. We'll talk about what happened with Paris a little bit later. However in both Herodotus's version of her tale and Euripides' play Helen she never actually made it to Troy but instead remained in Egypt during the course of the war with Herodotus claiming that Egyptians personally told him that Paris and Helen encountered unfavorable winds and so they sailed for Egypt instead, not Troy. So how is it that one mortal albeit beautiful woman is seen as the cause of the whole Trojan War? Well it all started at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis and their mistake of not inviting Eris, the goddess of strife, to the festivities. Eris turned up anyway and offered a golden apple to the fairest goddess and Aphrodite, Hera and Athena all stepped forward to receive the apple, argued over it and appealed to Zeus for a judgment. Instead of judging himself as the king of the gods, Zeus had Paris, the prince of Troy, decide who was the most beautiful. All three goddesses offered him something in the hopes that he would choose them. Athena promised him strength, beauty and invincibility in battle. Hera offered him immense wealth and regions of Asia and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful mortal woman in the world. Paris chose Aphrodite and so in return he got Helen as a prize and apparently her already being married to Menelaus wasn't really considered a problem by the gods. Fair to say that the kings of Greece had a different view on the matter. While Paris was on a diplomatic mission for the in Sparta and whilst he was a guest in Menelaus's house, he grabbed his prize, Helen and took her back to Troy. On their way to Troy, Paris stopped by the Phoenician city of Sidon and stole a whole bunch of treasure and so Helen of Sparta became Helen of Troy after she abandoned her children and her husband. Whether by choice or against her will isn't known. There are depictions of the abduction of Helen showing her going willingly with Paris and others where Paris is grabbing her arm not her hand. Because of the oath all of the kings of Greece had sworn after the marriage of Helen and Menelaus that they would protect her from harm as the rightful wife of Menelaus, all of those men and their armies went to war against the Trojans in the Trojan War. They besieged the city for 10 years until finally through the famous wooden horse ruse the Greeks entered the city and Helen was recovered while the city was sacked. During the 10-year siege, Helen was treated with respect by Priam, king of Troy, and his other son Hector since they both blamed Paris for bringing the war to their shores, not Helen. Helen and Paris had three sons, Bunomus, Agenus and Ideas, and one daughter, Helen, but all three boys died when a roof collapsed at the end of the war. During the long war, Menelaus and Paris engaged in a one-on-one fight with the victor being promised Helen, but although Menelaus got the better of Paris, the Trojan prince was whisked away by Aphrodite to safety. At the end of the war, Paris is killed by an arrow and Menelaus is reunited with Helen, although much of the surviving pottery depicting Helen's reunion with Menelaus shows her unwilling, or with Menelaus brandishing a sword. Once again, whether Helen was willing or not, she returned home to Greece with Menelaus, stopping in numerous places on the way including Crete, Egypt, Cyprus, Sidon, and North Africa. These detours in Helen and Menelaus's homecoming may have been a mythological explanation for the Bronze Age trade between Mycenaean Greece, Phoenicia, and Egypt, which also may have explained the transfer of ideas in art and pottery. When the pair finally return to Sparta, they are reunited with their daughter Hermione. In certain Greek states like Sparta, Rhodes, Attica, and Therapnae, Helen was worshipped as divine, which is a bit at odds with the way that most of the ancient world saw her, as a symbol of moral failure since she valued lust above reason in abandoning her family for her lover. No one in antiquity thought it was a good thing for a woman to behave like Helen. It is broadly agreed by scholars that Helen must have first been a divine figure and then a semi-divine human figure. She was understandably most popular as a religious figure in Sparta and was seen as a symbol of the parthenos to nymphae, meaning as the transformation from an adolescent to a bride. In Rhodes, Helen was associated with fertility, vegetation, and trees, while at Sparta she was associated with aspects of erotic desire and beauty, much like the goddess Aphrodite. The oldest sanctuary dedicated to Helen was at Therapnae, near Sparta, where she was represented as a married adult woman, and offerings were made at the temple in her name. According to the Greek historian and geographer Pausanias, locals of Therapnae believed the site was where Helen and Menelaus were buried, and offerings made to both Helen and Menelaus dating as late as the first century BCE have been found in this area, where their supposed tomb was, near an earlier Mycenaean palatial site. As Helen of Troy was a mythological character, she had no actual tomb of course, and lives on in the pages of Greek and world literature. Would you blame the Trojan War on Helen of Troy? If not, who would you blame and why? Let us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. This video was brought to you by World History Encyclopedia. For more great articles and interactive content, head to our website via the link below. If you like my sweater, you can find this design and a bunch more in our shop at worldhistory.store, or you can find a link for it down below. Thank you so much for watching, and we will see you soon with another video.