The carrying off of Helen was the cause of the Trojan War. Menelaus,
upon hearing what Paris had done, immediately returned to Sparta, and
began to make preparations to avenge the wrong. He called upon the other
kings and princes of Greece to join him with their armies and fleets in
a war against Troy. They were bound to do this by an oath they had taken
at the time of the marriage of Helen and Menelaus.
Helen was the daughter of Tynʹda-rus, who was king of Sparta before
Menelaus. Some say that she was the daughter of Jupiter, and that
Tyndarus was her stepfather. But from her infancy she was brought up at
the royal palace of Sparta as the daughter of Tyndarus and his wife,
Leʹda. When she became old enough to marry, the fame of her great beauty
drew many of the young princes of Greece to Sparta, all competing for
her favor, and each hoping to win her for his wife. This placed Tyndarus
in a difficulty. He was alarmed at the sight of so many suitors for the
hand of his daughter, for he knew that he could not give her to one
without offending all the rest. He therefore resolved to adopt the
advice of Ulysses, the prince of Ithʹa-ca (an island on the west coast
of Greece). Ulysses, also named O-dysʹseus, was famed for great wisdom
as well as valor in war.
Ulysses, man of many arts,
Son of Laertes, reared in Ithaca,
That rugged isle, and skilled in every form
Of shrewd device and action wisely planned.
BRYANT, _Iliad_, Book III.
Ulysses had himself been one of the suitors for Helen, but he saw that
among so many competitors he had little chance of success. Besides, he
had fallen in love with Pe-nelʹo-pe, the niece of Tyndarus. He therefore
withdrew from the contest, and he offered to suggest a plan for settling
the difficulty about Helen, if Tyndarus would give him Penelope to be
his wife. Tyndarus consented. Ulysses then advised that Helen should
choose for herself which of the princes she would have for her husband,
but that before she did so, all the suitors should pledge themselves by
oath to submit to her decision, and engage that if any one should take
her away from the husband of her choice, they would all join in
punishing the offender.
If any dared to seize and bear her off,
All would unite in arms, and lay his town
Level with the ground.
EURIPIDES (Potter's tr.).
The Grecian princes consented to this proposal. They all, including
Ulysses himself, took the required oath. Helen then made choice of
Menelaus, to whom she was immediately married with great pomp and
popular rejoicing. On the death of Tyndarus, Menelaus became king of
Sparta, and he and his beautiful queen lived and reigned together in
prosperity and happiness until the ill-fated visit of Paris.
Menelaus was the brother of Ag-a-memʹnon, king of My-ceʹnæ, one of the
most powerful and wealthy of the kings of Helʹlas, as Greece was
anciently called. Their father, Aʹtreus, was a son of the hero Peʹlops,
who conquered the greater part of the peninsula named from him the
Pel-oponneʹsus, and who was the grandson of Jupiter. Agamemnon, or
A-triʹdes (son of Atreus), as he is often called, was commander in chief
of all the Greek armies during the siege of Troy. From his high rank and
authority Homer calls him the "king of men" and the "king of kings." He
is sometimes also called "king of all Arʹgos," a powerful kingdom near
Mycenæ, and from this name the Greeks are sometimes called "Arʹgives."
The royal scepter which Agamemnon bore in his hands when addressing his
soldiers was made by Vulcan for Jupiter.
The king of kings his awful figure raised;
High in his hand the golden sceptre blazed;
The golden sceptre, of celestial flame,
By Vulcan formed, from Jove to Hermes came:
To Pelops he the immortal gift resign'd;
The immortal gift great Pelops left behind.
POPE, _Iliad_, Book II.
The kings and princes of Hellas, who met at the call of Menelaus,
decided, after some discussion of the matter, that before declaring war
against Troy it would be well to try to obtain satisfaction by peaceful
means. They therefore sent ambassadors to Troy to demand the restoration
of Helen and the treasures which Paris had carried off. Diʹo-mede, king
of Æ-toʹlia, and the wise Ulysses, were chosen for this mission.
Menelaus volunteered to accompany them, thinking that he might be able
to persuade his wife to return to her home.
When the Greek ambassadors arrived in the Trojan capital they were
respectfully received by the king. During their stay in the city they
were entertained at the residence of An-teʹnor, one of Priam's ministers
of state, who had the wisdom to disapprove of the action of Paris, and
to advise that the Spartan queen should be given back to her husband.
Antenor much admired the appearance and eloquence of Ulysses, which are
thus described in the Iliad:
"But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound,
His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground;
As one unskilled or dumb, he seem'd to stand,
Nor raised his head, nor stretch'd his sceptred hand;
But, when he speaks, what elocution flows!
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows,
The copious accents fall, with easy art;
Melting they fall, and sink into the heart!"
POPE, _Iliad_, Book III.
But the eloquence of Ulysses was of no avail. King Priam, blinded by his
love for his son, saw not the threatened danger, and he refused the
demand of the ambassadors. Menelaus was not even permitted to see his
wife. Ulysses and his companions then returned to Greece, and at once
preparations for war with Troy were commenced.
These preparations occupied a very long time. Ten years were spent in
getting together the vast force, which in more than a thousand ships was
carried across the Ægean Sea to the Trojan shores, from the port of
Auʹlis on the east coast-of Greece. Some of the Hel-lenʹic (Greek)
princes were very unwilling to join the expedition, as they knew that
the struggle would be a tedious and perilous one. Even Ulysses, who, as
we have seen, had first proposed the suitors' oath at Sparta, was at the
last moment unwilling to go. He had now become king of Ithaca, his
father, La-erʹtes, having retired from the cares of government, and he
would gladly have remained in his happy island home with his young wife,
Penelope, and his infant son, Te-lemʹa-chus, both of whom he tenderly
loved.
But the man of many arts could not be spared from the Trojan War. He
paid no heed, however, to the messages sent to him asking him to join
the army at Aulis. Agamemnon resolved, therefore, to go himself to
Ithaca to persuade Ulysses to take part in the expedition. He was
accompanied by his brother Menelaus, and by a chief named Pal-a-meʹdes,
a very wise and learned man as well as a brave warrior. As soon as
Ulysses heard of their arrival in Ithaca, he pretended to be insane, and
he tried by a very amusing stratagem to make them believe that he was
really mad. Dressing himself in his best clothes, and going down to the
seashore, he began to plow the beach with a horse and an _ox_ yoked
together, and to scatter salt upon the sand instead of seed.
[Illustration: ULYSSES FEIGNING MADNESS.
_Heywood Hardy._]
Palamedes, however, was more than a match in artifice for the Ithacan
king. Taking Telemachus from the arms of his nurse, he placed the
infant on the sand in front of the plowing team. Ulysses quickly turned
the animals aside to avoid injuring his child, thus proving that he was
not mad but in full possession of his senses. The king of Ithaca was
therefore obliged to join the expedition to Troy. With twelve ships well
manned he sailed from his rugged island, which he did not again see for
twenty years. Ten years he spent at the siege, and ten on his homeward
voyage, during which he met with the wonderful adventures that Homer
describes in the Odyssey.
Ulysses had his revenge upon Palamedes in a manner very unworthy of a
brave man. In the camp before Troy, during the siege, he bribed one of
the servants of Palamedes to conceal a sum of money in his master's
tent. He then forged a letter, which he read before a council of the
Greek generals, saying that Palamedes had taken it from a Trojan
prisoner. This letter was written as if by King Priam to Palamedes,
thanking him for the information he had given regarding the plans of the
Greeks, and mentioning money as having been sent him in reward for his
services. The Greek generals at once ordered a search to be made in the
tent of Palamedes, and the money being found where it had been hidden by
direction of Ulysses, the unfortunate Palamedes was immediately put to
death as a traitor.
Palamedes, not unknown to fame,
Who suffered from the malice of the times,
Accused and sentenced for pretended crimes.