What, Where, and Why? - The Greek's Thoughts on Helen in Non-Homeric Versions
Previously I posted Sappho's Fragment 16 on Helen where the author believed in her agency in forsaking her family and home city for Paris as a form of, "you go girl."
A classic professor, Joel Christensen, posted an in-depth article about the various Greek's attitude toward Helen besides Sappho on his substack, but sadly removed it. So I figure I make my own messy compilation because people are annoying about Helen now. The backstory with Theseus was neither in Homer nor all accounts and Euripides wrote different characters of Helen, so that's why I'm doing this.
Alcman (c. 7th century BC)
Although fragmented and more about the Dioscuri, Alcman incorporated the myth of Helen's abduction by Theseus. What's striking about this is that it has the brothers alive at the time of the Trojan War. The scholalist offered an explanation for the Dioscuri's absence in the war is due to shame, a recurring theme in Helen's mythology.
Stesichorus (c. 630 – c. 555 BC)
Another lyric poet, Stesichorus followed Alcman's suit of linking the Theseus abduction and The Trojan War lore together for Helen. But this time, he is credited for proposed the revisionist myth where Helen at Troy was a phantom and that the real woman was at Egypt the whole time. Legend has it that after Stesichorus wrote a Palinode to Helen blaming her fir the war, the goddess Helen came to him, removed his sight as a punishment and only reversed when Stesichorus recanted his accusations and instead called Homer a liar, a tradition that later authors followed as we will explore later on.
Stesichorus also wrote about Iphigenia being Helen's and Theseus' daughter (Paus. 2.22.6).
Alceaus (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC)
-P. Oxy. 1233 fr. 2 ii 1–16.
This one is pretty straight-forward. The lyric poet outright condemned Helen for indirectly causing Troy's destruction and Achilles' death because the Greeks and Trojans fought for her.
Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC)
As a historian, Herodotus wrote various things on Helen including her phantom myth and opinion on her role in the war.
In one version he recorded allegedly told by the Egyptian priests the same version Stesichorus told but with a twist: the Trojans never had her phantom.
He then say if the real Helen was at Troy, the Greeks and Trojans wouldn't risk their lives for a mere woman, which means Helen was indeed, as Marlowe puts it, "the face that launched a thousand ships."
-Herodotus, The Persian Wars, Bk 2
Gorgais (c. 483 – c. 375 BC)
It’s worth noting around this time period, the debate on Helen being at fault or not was a good practice for showcasing rhetoric skills. Many philosophers and writers including the playwrights engaged with this subject. In the treatise, Encomium of Helen, Gorgias demonstrated his oration on defending Helen. The Helen he wrote was the most beautiful demigoddess who inspired not just lust but also, "assembled many personalities of proud ambition, of whom some possessed opulent riches, others the fair fame of ancient ancestry; others the vigor of native strength, others the power of acquired wisdom; and all came because of amorous contention and ambitious pretention." (4).
It's pretty long so I won't quoted the whole thing which you can read here. He argued this interesting snippet:
This argument echoed a similar sentiment Sappho shared who believed Love to be the greatest and powerful force of nature that someone like Helen can't resisted despite having a great husband.
Euripides (c. 480 – c. 406 BC)
In his corpus of work, Euripides wrote both positive and negative different depictions of Helen that are not narrative connected with each other.
In the eponymous play, Euripides followed Stesichorus's Egyptian variant. The gods crafted a phantom of Helen to Paris while transporting her to Egypt. Helen is a chaste and faithful wife waiting for Menelaus for years while she is being pursued by Theoclymenos. She is distraught by the news of her family members, particularly her mother Leda who committed suicide out of shame for her daughter's suppose actions.
On the other hand elsewhere, Euripides painted Helen in the most callous and despicable portrayal. In The Trojan Women, Helen denied any fault she felt for the fall of Troy, the death of the soldiers, and the enslavement of the women. At one point she went on a monologue absolving her responsibility by pinning blame on Hecuba for failing to kill Paris, Menelaus for leaving her alone with Paris, and the goddesses for forcing her and Paris.
In the classic rhetorical battle, Hecuba rebuttal her reasons
Elsewhere, Orestes, Electra, and Iphigenia expressed their hatred toward Helen. In Electra, Clytemnestra compared Agamemnon's decision to kill Iphigenia to Helen's lust (1027), but Electra say her mother is like her sister as two peas in a pod - full of shame and vanity (1069-1075). At the end of Orestes, both Electra and her brother attempted to kill Helen before she was rescued:
In Iphigenia in Tauris, Iphigenia is bitter her life has to be sacrificed by her father for another woman the Greeks deemed to be more important.
Isocrates (c. 436–338 BC)
Like Gorgias, Isocrates wrote his own Encomium of Helen which is on Topostext you can read. He introduced by mentioning many students and professions including Gorgias who wrote their own encomium.
He started off that Helen's beauty surpassed all others than she first captivated Theseus that led to her abduction. Due to this incident and the subsequent events, Isocrates argued Helen's divine linage as well as her beauty is what physiologically attracted men to pursued her for marriage and fight for her including Paris' woman of choice. Basically if she indirectly led Theseus to earn kleos as a king, then she can inspired the same for many men. At the end, he argued beauty is one of the most powerful virtues.
I am astonished that anyone should think that Alexander was ill-advised in choosing to live with Helen, for whom many demigods were willing to die. Would he not have been a fool if, knowing that the deities themselves were contending for the prize of beauty, he had himself scorned beauty, and had failed to regard as the greatest of gifts that for the possession of which he saw even those goddesses most earnestly striving?
With good reason in truth they came to this decision, and I, for my part, am justified in employing extravagant language in speaking of Helen; for beauty she possessed in the highest degree, and beauty is of all things the most venerated, the most precious, and the most divine. And it is easy to determine its power; for while many things which do not have any attributes of courage, wisdom, or justice will be seen to be more highly valued than any one of these attributes, yet of those things which lack beauty we shall find not one that is beloved; on the contrary, all are despised, except in so far as they possess in some degree this outward form, beauty, and it is for this reason that virtue is most highly esteemed, because it is the most beautiful of ways of living
He[Protesilaos] finds fault with the following verses of Homer. First, because, after intermingling gods and mortals, Homer spoke highly about mortals, but contemptibly and basely about the gods. Next, clearly knowing that Helen was in Egypt, since she along with Paris had been carried away by the winds, Homer kept her on the wall of Ilion so that she would see the sorry events on the plain. It is likely that, if these events had taken place because of any other woman, she would have covered her face and not looked while her people were attacked.
-Philostratus, Heroica, 693
