#menelaus

Telemarketing - Telemachus

Miscellaneous - Menelaus

They're both rapists. So is Achilles. So are most of the male characters. Unless you believe the women they enslaved and who gave birth to their children were able to say no, which is... a really batshit crazy idea.

Menelaus originally planned on murdering Helen after the war. What stayed his hand was her beauty, not his goodness.

Agamemnon's intro in the Illiad includes sacrificing his daughter so he can go to war, kill people, and enslave others. Do you really think Cassandra, after being raped in Athena's temple started enthusiastically thinking about being Agamemnon's concubine?

All except for one man who thankfully didn't get the memo 🙌

King Menelaus and Queen Helen of Sparta

I'm not even a Menelaus fan. I've never really cared about or been interested in him. And even I think depicting him as an abusive husband is unfair. Of course he isn't an angel, he's done his share of terrible things, I don't think he and Helen were in some ideal heavenly love (not saying they didn't love each other, I do think they were in love when they married, just not in the everlasting, match-made-in-heaven type of love that only exists in romance novels and instead the kind of love with ups and downs, the kind that people fall in and out and back in) or he started the war purely out of his love for Helen (he did it also to get his right as Helen's husband back, to save his face after being a cuckolded husband and to gain the wealth of Troy, which is realistic, I would have despised him if he decided to start a war entirely based on his emotions). But that doesn't directly mean he is an evil and cruel abuser. There are many forms of relationships else than the ideal heavenly love and the outright abuse.

Plus I also doubt that Agamemnon would have been physically violent to Clytemnestra during their marriage. I'm not saying this because I'm fond of him, I'm absolutely not, I fucking hate him and he deserved to be butchered by his wife's axe. But still. I don't think he was a wife beater. He is a man who can actually be decent when needed. Of course I don't think he was a good husband either. I do think their relationship must have been problematic or toxic beneath the surface. He did start their 'relationship' by murdering her husband and baby and then raping her. He does disrespect her openly in the Iliad by saying that he prefers Chryseis to his wife for the girl is superior to his wife in many aspects. A husband who doesn't see it problematic to insult his wife in front of everyone is never a good husband. But it doesn't always mean there is physical violence. Not all toxic relationships include beating in it.