39,870
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→Timeline
*[[1190s BC|1194 BC]] - Beginning of the [[Trojan War]].
*[[1180s BC|1184 BC]] - [[Paris]] mortally wounded in battle by [[Philoctetes]]. [[Priam]] marries Helen to [[Deiphobus]], a younger brother of Paris.
*[[April 24]], [[1180s BC|1184 BC]] - Fall of [[Troy]]. Deiphobus is slain by [[Menelaus]] who reclaims Helen as his wife. They sail on their return journey but are stranded on the shores of [[Egypt]].*[[1170s BC|1176 BC]] - After spending eight years in [[Egypt]], they manage to set sail again and reach the shores of the [[Peloponnesus]]. According to [[Euripides]] they visit [[Mycenae]], arriving shortly after the murders of King [[Aegisthus]], who was Menelaus' first cousin, and Queen [[Clytemnestra]], who was Helen's sister, by their common nephew [[Orestes (mythology)|Orestes]], the new King of [[Mycenae]]. Orestes attempts to kill his aunt but fails. The royal couple return to [[Sparta]] (or else Helen is taken off by Apollo)
*[[1170s BC|1174 BC]] - According to the [[Odyssey]], [[Telemachus]] of [[Ithaca]] visits [[Sparta]] seeking information about his father [[Odysseus]]. Menelaus and Helen reply that they have not heard of him since they left Troy ten years ago. They mourn their many lost relatives and friends.
*[[1150s BC|1154 BC]] - According to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], Menelaus dies of old age and natural causes. [[Megapenthes]], his illegitimate son, seizes the throne and exiles Helen. He soon loses the throne to his first cousin King [[Orestes]] of [[Mycenae]] who is married to [[Hermione]], the only legitimate daughter of Menelaus and Helen and half-sister of Megapenthes. By this point [[Orestes]] had also seized the vacant thrones of [[Argos]] and [[Arcadia prefecture|Arcadia]] and becomes the sole ruler of the Peloponnesus. Helen seeks refuge in [[Rhodes]] near [[Polyxo]], widow of [[Tlepolemus]], an old friend of hers. Tlepolemus was famously the first man to be killed during the Trojan War. In revenge for her husband's death, Polyxo ordered her maidens to pretend to be the ghosts of the many dead seeking revenge from Helen. Helen committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree. After her death she is deified.
