ABSTRACT
The younger son of Atreus, king of Mycenae, and of Aerope (or, according to a less familiar version, of Atreus’ son Pleisthenes). He and his brother Agamemnon spent their youth at Sicyon and in Aetolia, while Atreus’ brother Thyestes was in control of Mycenae. When they were old enough to rule, Tyndareos of Sparta helped them to expel Thyestes. Agamemnon married Tyndareos’ daughter Clytemnestra and, using his influence with his father-in-law, urged the cause of Menelaus as a suitable match for Clytemnestra’s halfsister Helen, who was a daughter of Zeus. The other suitors of Helen had been numerous and quarrelsome, but agreed to Odysseus’ proposal that they should swear an oath to protect whichever of them Helen eventually chose as her husband. She chose Menelaus, and they had a daughter, Hermione. Menelaus also had two bastard sons, Megapenthes by a slave-woman and Nicostratus by a nymph. In his old age Tyndareos made Menelaus his heir to the throne of Sparta, and abdicated in his favour.
