If you glance at our feedback section, you'll see that there's a class somewhere in the world that has a project on Helen of Troy. We are being pretty much inundated with requests for more background info.

For the more romantic elements, see our story of Helen. Of course the Wikipedia, which must be the starting point of all school projects these days, has some good information, which you should read.

Here are a few more hints to help the girls with their project.

We know of Helen first of all from the Iliad, an epic poem composed by the Greek poet Homer in around the 8th century Before Christ (BC). Homer is describing events that may have taken place even earlier, in the 11th Century BC, in what is known as the "Mycenaean Age."

The Iliad tells the story of a war between Greece and Troy - Troy being a city in what we now know as Turkey. It can be seen as a clash between East and West. The Trojan war looms large in Greek mythology both for the heroics of the fighters and the tragedy of the outcome. The Iliad shows the war as being both glorious and futile, and the cause of it all is seen as as being a beautiful woman - Helen.

In real life, men fight over women when they get drunk in bars, but there are rarely entire wars over them. But this is mythology. Perhaps there really was a war between the Greeks and the Trojans, but in all likelihood it was about something else. There is of course a hint in the story - quite out of tune with modern views - that women are the cause of all trouble in the world. You can see a similar view in the Bible when Eve tempts Adam to eat the apple, the "original sin."

Ancient Greece was really a series of separate small states that only came together in times of war against an external enemy. The real life example was when the Greeks united to fight Persia in the 5th Century BC - another case of East V West. Helen came from a Greek state called Sparta, which later on was the main rival in power to Athens. Homer called Sparta, "The land of beautiful women", and its early pottery depicts lovely girls dancing and singing. Later, it was much more, er "Spartan" which means they didn't go in for fun much at all.

Helen either ran away with, or was abducted by, Paris, Prince of Troy.( See Judgement of Paris). Paris had been a guest of Helen's husband, King Menelaus, and Paris's behaviour with Helen was seen as an abuse of hospitality and a terrible insult to Greece. He also stole treasure and took it with him. Menelaus's brother, Agamemnon, was King of nearby Mycenae. You can visit the ruins of Mycenae to this day- and see the Lion gates. There is also a beautiful golden mask, said to be of Agamemnon's face, in the Athens Museum. From the relics you will see that Mycenae was an extremely rich, and therefore powerful state. Agamemnon gathered the various Greek armies together and led them against the Trojans.

Homer depicts Helen as being extremely sorry to be the cause of the war, and therefore of so much suffering. But she is also torn by her attraction to Paris. Therefore you can see her upbraiding Paris for being a coward in battle, and a few minutes later embracing him on their couch. (End of Iliad Book III).

Oddly, Homer depicts her in Book IV oof his poem, the Odyssey, as living quite happily with King Menelaus, back in Sparta after the war was over. Perhaps she managed to convince her husband that Paris had taken her against her will.

Later on she appears in plays by the Greek Tragic dramatists of the 5th Century, including a play called "Helen" by Euripides. According to Euripides, Helen never went to Troy, but stopped off in Egypt. She has continued to inspire literature down the ages. The English dramatist, Christopher Marlow (who lived at the same time as Shakespeare), called her "The face that launched a 1000 ships" and that tag has stuck.