 Alternatively it was believed that Menelaus and Helen had stayed there, accommodated by the noble Egyptian Thon and his wife Polydamna.The 2nd century BC Greek poet Nicander wrote that Menelaus’s helmsman, Canopus, was bitten by a viper on the sands of Thonis.According to Herodotus, a great temple was built at the spot where Heracles first arrived in Egypt.