The painting depicts the birth of Helen of Troy. According to the myth, Helen comes to being through the union of Zeus and Leda. Zeus approaches Leda in the form of a swan. Because he is in the form of a swan, Leda lays eggs, and upon hatching, Helen is born. This image is based on a comedy (The man with an ax has a comedic eyebrow, and each of the men is wearing a penis, a prop always used in the play, imitating Priapus). Because of the loss of the play, we are not informed about the content of this painting. We only know through mere visual facts that a man is raising an ax. Maybe he is helping Helen out, or he is afraid of Helen to be a monster because she is born from an egg. Another man is on the right, lifting his hand to the sky. Maybe he is praying to God. Also, a woman is peeping into the room.

The picture illustrates the abduction of Helen by Theseus. To the left, the charioteer Phorbas is holding the chariot ready. On the right side of the picture, a relative or friend of Helen named Deianeira extends her arm to offer help Helen. The center of the image is not clear about what is happening, perhaps capturing the chaotic moment perfectly. One thing interesting is that there are four horses holding the chariot, which generally used until the Iron Age, rather than the Bronze Age when this abduction happens. This drawing strategy indicates that though the content initially occurs in the Bronze Age, the cultural element would change corresponding to the need of different times. No wonder Homer’s Iliad contains plenty of later era’s attributes. Other sources and documentations, like this pebble mosaic, are also intervened by cultural distortion. Also, the facial expression of the chariot rider Phorbas shows the expertise of the painter.

David depicts the lovers embracing in a secluded and sumptuous bedroom, which differs from his previous work in its choice of amatory rather than heroic or didactic subject. David perceives this commission as an opportunity to explore new aesthetic terrain by focusing on the complexities of mythology as an intellectual category.

Like that female character, Paris impossibly contorts his body so that his head faces Helen with his left cheek in full profile. His eyes gaze directly towards her to make complete eye contact. Finally, his muscular right arm grasps her left arm and appears to be both bringing her closer and pulling her down. It is Paris’ body that bespeaks a desire and eagerness. Helen’s pose, on the other hand, is languid and evokes no mutual desire. She stands half a head taller than the seated Paris even though her body is hunched over. Except for her legs and feet, which cross and subtly imply backward motion, the body is limp. Her arm is so carelessly draped over Paris’ right shoulder that it appears she is unaware of the limb. Her eyes do not reciprocate Paris’ glance and look blankly downward toward the ground. She lacks control of her movement and yields herself half-heartedly to the embrace of her lover. This scene represents the moment after which Paris has made his case to the resigned Helen in the Homeric text:

No more dear one—don’t rake me with your taunts,
Myself and all my courage. This time, true,
Menelaus has won the day thanks to Athena.
I’ll bring him down tomorrow.
Even we have gods who battle on our side.
But come—
Let’s go to bed, let’s lose ourselves in love!
Never has longing for you overwhelmed me so,
No, not even then, I tell you, that first time
When I swept you up from the lovely hills of Lacedaemon,
Sailed you off and away in the racing deep-sea ships
And we went and locked in love on Rocky Island…
That was nothing to how I hunger for you now—
Irresistible longing lays me low!

The vase painting decorates a water-jar or hydria, a vessel which has an important place in women’s lives. This one is probably an object from a grave. Paris, the son of King Priam, is standing and looking at Helen while Helen is sitting and seemingly holding a mirror upon, which emphasizes her beauty. Helen and Paris are in the center of the painting, and behind them, individuals are listening to the conversation taking part. This painting has no specific background storyline to support the content but is only a random meeting between Paris and Helen. The scene also depicts an angel on top, perhaps guarding the daughter of Zeus, or he is Cupid, which indicates the love affair between Paris and Helen. On Helen’s right side is Himeros, the God of uncontrolled desire. There are other Gods of passions present in this painting, for example, Peitho and Habrosyne. Because of the displays of these Gods, we can infer this event roughly happens when Paris and Helen meet each other in Sparta, and soonly Helen is taken to Troy by Paris.

There are two possible interpretations of this Stela. The first one is that Menelaus is wooing Helen. On the left, Menelaus, with fillet binding his short, neatly-trimmed hair, stepped toward youthful Helen. His left arm raised and resting on her shoulder, his hand reached around her neck and held her hair on the side facing the viewer, and his right hand extended to clasp her left hand; Helen, hair loose indicating she is still a maiden, proffering wreath held in the left hand to Menelaus.

The second one is: Menelaus was threatening Helen. Menelaus with long hair and beard strode toward Helen. His body bent forward slightly in agitation, left arm raised and on Helen’s shoulder as though trying to get a grip on her, and right hand pulled back, holding the sword with which he is threatening to slay his wife; Helen, veiled as sign of mature, married woman, standing almost impassively, left hand raised and touching the sword as if to stop death blow. The marriage of Menelaus and Helen and their reunion after the Trojan War were not part of the Homeric cycle but belong instead to the poems written approximately one hundred years later, in the eighth century B.C. These non-Homeric poems were to prove far more popular than the Iliad and the Odyssey as sources of subjects for both the representational arts and the tragedies. The first subject of our Stela went even farther in depicting a scene for which there was no literary evidence. From the Catalogue of Women, attributed to Hesiod but written, probably, in the mid-eighth century, we learn that when Tyndareus made his step-daughter Helen available for marriage, many suitors, all great heroes, came bearing gifts. Among them was Agamemnon, who “being son-in-law to Tyndareus, wooed her for his brother Menelaus.” This tradition persisted in all Greek literature.

But a recently found inscription makes it clear that numerous shield-bands depicted a scene like this, which is identified as Menelaus wooing Helen. The self-confident ruler stepped forward to grasp his future wife. Schefold pointed out that the archaic Greeks were anxious to determine the reasons behind things and therefore seized upon the detailing of Helen’s life as part of their fascination with the cause of the Trojan War.

The marriage of Helen and Menelaus was doomed to failure because Tyndareus, years previous, had failed to sacrifice to Aphrodite. In revenge, the goddess made all three daughters – Clytemnestra, Tymandra, and Helen – notorious for their adulteries. Thus Electra, in Euripides’ Orestes, cried out, “Tyndareus begat a race of daughters notorious for the shame they earned, infamous throughout Hellas.”The cause of Electra’s cry was the news that Menelaus had returned from Troy, bringing Helen with him. The reunion of husband and wife, which resulted in their eventual return to Greece, was challenging to be particular about.
The sixth-century Sicilian Stesichorus was credited with creating the first version of the story in which Helen went to Egypt, and only her wraith remained in Troy. This story formed the plotline of Euripides’ Helena, in which the grieving Menelaus finally arrived in Egypt to find Helen about to wed an Egyptian ruler. The antiquity of this version was dubious. More likely, the original epic poem dealt with this subject (cf. for example, Lesches’ Little Iliad of ca. 750 B.C.) told of Menelaus coming to take Helen from Deiphobus. The artist had chosen to represent the moment just after the death of Deiphobus when Menelaus stepped forward to slay Helen. It was at this point, according to Lampito in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, “Menelaus, when he saw Helen’s naked bosom, threw away his sword, they say.”

Interesting throughout the various versions of the mythology centering around Helen was the ambiguity of attitude which men expressed toward her. Agamemnon, in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis, said to Menelaus, “Why you are mad yourself, seeking a wicked wife once rid of her,” a sentiment with which Menelaus himself agreed later in the play. Yet in the Helena Menelaus expressed no bitterness at all toward Helen, saved the years he wasted at Troy when she was actually in Egypt. When Orestes (in the Orestes ) saod of Agamemnon that “If he is bringing his wife with him he is bringing a load of evil,” he expressed what most Greeks felt about this daughter of Leda and Zeus. Yet she continued to enthrall men. Even during the midst of the battle at Troy, Achilles was said to have been overcome by her beauty and to have fallen in love with her. Graves himself tried to explain her out of the Trojan War altogether by viewing the suitors of Helen as those who were mindful of the Hellespont, a linguistic argument that was highly debatable.

We know that Helen was once a nature goddess of farther-reaching provenance than Graves’ suggested Spartan moon-goddess (cf. 3Gc.020). What we do not know is the transformation she underwent between Mycenaean times and just barely post-Homeric days. She losed her status as a goddess, but it was clear that she retained her aura of primitive feminine power. In post-classical times Helen was reduced to a cheap human temptress and, like Medea (cf. 3Ha.125), was then only a nasty woman. From the eighth century to the late fifth century, she continued to be an influential feminine figure. Exactly how we are to read her role during this period is difficult to determine, but that she haunts the emerging consciousness of Greek culture is unquestionable.

Helen was the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris, a Trojan prince, seduced Helen. This affair began the Trojan War. Accounts of their love story tend to differ. Some writers recorded that Helen fell in love with Paris. Others believed that she was unwillingly ‘abducted’ or ‘stolen’ from her husband. In this painting, Helen, followed by her ladies in waiting, is depicted at the center of the composition. She is led away by Paris, who sports a plumed helmet, and is accompanied by his soldiers. To the far right, two figures regard ships at sea. Incidental foreground details include a black boy, a small lapdog, and Cupid with his bow who turns to see the viewer with complicity. Paris looks directly into Helen’s face, while Helen pays no attention to Paris, and even seems distressed down to the ground. This contrast suggests that Helen is not willing to leave with Paris. However, there are Cupid on the right corner of the picture, which indicates it will happen to be love. Still, we are not convinced whether the Cupid represents the presence of love, or his image is preferably an irony for the abduction.

Scherer, Margaret R. 1967. “Helen Of Troy”. The Metropolitan Museum Of Art Bulletin, New Series 25 (10): 367-383. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3258426.

Homer’s Iliad told little of Helen’s story. This article focuses on talking about other Medieval plays that described some famous stories of Helen with a view different from Homer. As Christianity gradually superseded paganism and the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome entered their long transition to the Middle Ages, the shape of the Trojan story changed, according to social and cultural needs. For instance, Dares, in his book, The History of the Destruction of Troy, showed that the sympathies of Europe were shifting to the Trojan side, and gradually the Trojans rather than the Greeks became the heroes of the tale, with Greek’s images were transformed into medieval knights. In this way, they consider Helen to be innocent. For instance, the Cypria gave an underlying cause, which emphasized the Greek concept of fate, that it was Zeus planning with Themis [goddess of order] to bring about the Trojan War.

Moreover, Medieval romances changed the story of Helen’s abduction radically. To the Middle Ages, people were so emphatical about the Trojan heroes that it was unthinkable for a Trojan to steal his host’s wife from a home where he had entertainments. Thus, when Paris and Helen caught sight of each other, their mutual passion flamed. The medieval romance also found in the welcome of a beautiful queen and opportunity for showing the pageantry of royal entries. Many paintings left showed this tendency. For instance, The Marriage of Paris and Helen. Flemish (Tournai or Brussels), about 1500. Wool and silk tapestry, 11 feet 2 inches x 11 feet 1 inch. Homer depicted in Odysseus that Helen lived with Menelaus in harmony and comfort. Euripides also wrote in drama Helen that Menelaus found the real Helen in Egypt. Then the phantom of Helen in Troy vanished. The medieval romances, on the other hand, told that the Greeks felt considerable enmity against Helen after the fall of Troy. Pausanius, a second century A.D. author, told several versions of Helen’s end: Her grave was on the island of Therapne with Menelaus’; the jealous queen hanged Helen on the island of Rhodes after Menelaus’ death, and Helen lived in the White Isle with Achilles. 

In short, the story of Helen and the attitude people treated with Helen were not precisely accessible for us nowadays. They varied according to different cultural propagandas. That is the reason that so many versions of her stories left and song by us. 

Blondell, Ruby. 2018. “Helen And The Divine Defense: Homer, Gorgias, Euripides”. Classical Philology 113 (2): 113-133. doi:10.1086/696821.

In this article, the author wants to look at the difference both these contexts make, individually and together, to his interpretation of the argument that he calls the divine defense: the claims that one is not responsible for one’s actions if a god caused them. He shall focus on the three principle occasions when this argument is used to exonerate Helen of Troy.

The tension is the gods, of course, heavily involved in Helen’s elopement. Zeus begets her specifically to make men fight over her beauty, and, at the Judgment of Paris, Aphrodite offers “marriage to Helen” as a bribe. However, these sources agree that she leaves her husband willingly, driven by her desire. In such cases, divine influence on human behavior does not typically remove human responsibility. The three contexts are significantly different, in which the divine defense of Helen, as used in these three texts, is uttered in different ways – both internal and external – is fundamental to its precise import in each case.

For Homer, it is in Priam’s voice that we hear the divine defense used on Helen’s behalf. He is addressing Helen herself, in a private conversation, as they look down from the walls of Troy at the duel between Paris and Menelaus. He says that “In my view, you are not responsible, but the gods are responsible, who stir up lamentable war with the Achaians.” In this case, the tension between self-blame and exculpation of Helen makes it easier to use the divine defense, as Priam does, as a face-saver on behalf of another person rather than oneself.

For Gorgias, the defense speech is argued by the sophist that Helen should not be held responsible for eloping if she “did what she did” under the influence of the gods. Gorgias develops his argument in a way that challenges the foundations of the moral order by threatening to eliminate human responsibility as such and with it all moral judgment, praise, and blame. In other words, he defies traditional views about human responsibility grounded in the principle of double determination. Though the perspective and critical point are similar to Homer’s setting, this internal context of utterance for Gorgias’ use of the divine defense is a public gathering where a man is speaking on behalf of an absent woman, a passive and powerless object or vehicle, to an assembly of other men. However, though Gorgias claimed that his goal was to arouse pity for Helen, this detached stance distances us from her point of view, and thus from sympathizing with her.

For Euripides, he gives Helen an unparalleled opportunity to defend herself at length for her elopement. This argument is structurally similar to those we see in Homer and Gorgias, Helen’s denial of double determination, placing it in Helen’s own, constitutes a shameless refusal of personal responsibility. Talking about herself makes herself hateful for Trojan women, and departs appropriately feminine comportment. Thus, Helen’s death sentence stands.

Skutsch, Otto. 1987. “Helen, Her Name And Nature”. The Journal Of Hellenic Studies 107: 188-193. doi:10.2307/630087.

      The author claims that to put forward ideas on the name and nature of Helen may seem hazardous because of the uncertainty of the evidence. Nevertheless, the author shall attempt to outline the problems. If the author proposes any solution, the solution should be tentative.

     In the treatment of myth, two tendencies were strong: with comparative philosophy coming it is own, it became fashionable to equate Greek mythological names with those of India. The other one was to reduce all mythological figures to natural phenomena.

     Helen was, in fact, a tree goddess or, more generally, a goddess of vegetation. Another theory said that Helen went away to the south like the sun when the winter came. Moreover, Helen, with her brother, were divine twins known to many of the Indo-European tribes. In Germanic mythology, their stories were all related to the sun.

     There might be two mythological Helen. Because there were different sources, it showed that there existed “Helen,” the name without digamma (Corinth), and with digamma (which means the swift one). Though it may be tempting to ascribe the spelling to the influence of Homer, little influence of Homer appeared in the form of the other name on Corinth. We shall see below a difference in the functions of different “Helen,” which strongly suggests that we have to do with two different names.

     Regarding the one with initial “s,” if made into a name, it would mean “the shining one.” That name fitted the vegetation goddess who receded to the south like the sun extremely well. Firstly, the Spartan goddess and Helen of Troy were identical, that the vegetation goddess was liked with Menelaus in their cult at Therapne. Secondly, as the shining one, her name connected with lights other than the sun, especially torch and the corposant, as depicted in many other plays than Homer’s.

     In short, the author tries to combine Helen without a digamma with Helen with a digamma. However, the others think there are no exact parallels for the relative, but there are dedications with the demonstrative pronoun. The author still holds that it is likely that, among a group of items dedicated, so small an object as a ring would bear the dedicatory inscription.

Hughes, Bettany. 2005. Helen Of Troy. London: Jonathan Cape.

Blondell, Ruby. 2013. Helen Of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Austin, Norman. 1994. Helen Of Troy And Her Shameless Phantom. Itahca And London: Cornell University Press