Helen and her friends
"If you were keen to go to sleep early, you should have slept alone and left the girl to play deep into the night with the other girls at her loving mother’s side, for she will be your bride the day after next and the day that dawns after that, and all the years to come."
Theocritus, Idyll XVIII
Helen abducted by Theseus. To the right, a woman labelled Phoebe moves towards them with her arm raised.
Athenian red-figure stamnos by Polygnotos (475—425 BC)
"We, the whole company of her friends equal in age, who run together and anoint ourselves in the same way as men at the bathing places of the river Eurotas, a young group of four times sixty girls — not one of us is faultless in comparison with Helen."
Theocritus, Idyll XVIII
Helen abducted by Theseus. To the right, a woman labelled Deianira flees, looking back at Helen in distress.
Mosaic floor from the House of the Abduction of Helen (325—300 BC)
Helen was driven out by Nicostratus and Megapenthes and came to Rhodes, where she had a friend in Polyxo, the wife of Tlepolemus.
Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece
