Helen of Troy - The Iliad for Kids!


Helen of Troy

Helen, the daughter of Zeus and the queen of Sparta, was the most beautiful young woman in the world. She lived in Sparta with her mother and her father, the king of Sparta, and her half-sister, Clytemnestra. All the young men wanted to marry her. Her stepfather (the king of Sparta) was afraid that if he said she could marry one of the suitors (the men who wanted to marry her), all the other suitors would fight him, and there would be a big war. (Yes, Helen was that beautiful. It's a story).

So Helen's stepfather had an idea. He got all the suitors together in one place and made them all swear to protect Helen and her marriage, whichever one of them got to marry her. So they all swore. Then the king (Helen's stepfather) had the suitors all compete in athletic games. The one who won was Menelaus, and so he married Helen.

Helen's sister Clytemnestra married Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, Menelaus' older brother.

More on Helen and the Trojan War

To find out more about Helen of Troy, check out these books from Amazon or from your local library:

History of Sparta
Greek religion
Ancient Greece
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