Helena
Helena, Helen
- Daughter of Jupiter and Leda, sister of Castor and Pollux and of Clytemnestra, and wife of Menelaüs, who, on account of her beauty, was carried off by Paris to Troy, and thus became the cause of the Trojan war, Cic. Phil. 2, 22, 55; Verg. A. 7, 364; Ov. M. 13, 200; 14, 669; Prop. 3, 8 (4, 7), 32; 3, 14 (4, 13), 19; Hor. C. 1, 3, 2; 4, 9, 16; id. S. 1, 3, 107; Hyg. Fab. 81 and 118: Penelope venit, abit Helene, a Helen, Mart. 1, 62, 6.—
- B Transf., in naut. lang., a single star appearing to mariners, which was regarded as an unfavorable prognostic; while a double light, which was conceived to be favorable, was called Castor and Pollux, Plin. 2, 37, 37, § 101; cf. Stat. Th. 7, 792; id. S. 3, 2, 11.—
- II The surname of the mother of the emperor Constantine, Eutr. 10, 5; Aur. Vict. Epit. 41; Inscr. Grut. 284, 1.
HE´LENA(Ἑλένη: Eth. Ἑλεναῖος, Ἑλενίτης, Ἑλένειος: Makronísi), a long narrow island, extending along the eastern coast of Attica from Thoricus to Sunium, and distant from two to four miles from the shore. It was also called MACRIS(Μάκρις), from its length. (Steph. B. s. v. Ἑλένη.) Strabo (9. p. 399) describes it as 60 stadia in length; but its real length is seven geographical miles. It was uninhabited in antiquity, as it is at the present day; and it was probably only used then, as it is now, for the pasture of cattle. Both Strabo and Pausanias derive its name from Helena, the wife of Menelaus: the latter writer supposes that it was so called because Helena landed here after the capture of Troy; but Strabo identifies it with the Homeric Cranae, to which Paris fled with Helena ( Il. 3.445), and supposes that its name was hence changed. into Helena. There cannot, however, be any doubt that the Homeric Cranaë was opposite Gythium in Laconia. [CRANAE] (Strab. 9. p. 399, 10. p. 485; Paus. 1.35.1, 8.14.12; Steph. B. s. v.;Mela, 2.7; Plin. Nat. 4.12. s. 20; Leake, Demi of Attica, p. 66; Bröndsted, Voyage, vol. 1. p. 77; Ross, Reisen auf den Griech. Inseln, vol. 2. p. 8.)
HELENA[ILLIBERRIS.]
(Ἑλένη). (1) The beautiful daughter of Zeus and Leda, the wife of Tyndareos of Sparta. She was sister of the Dioscuri and of Clytaemnestra. The post-Homeric story represented her as carried off, while still a maiden, by Theseus, to the Attic fortress of Aphidnae, where she bore him a daughter, Iphigenia. She was afterwards set free by her brothers, who took her back to Sparta. She was wooed by a number of suitors, and at length gave her hand to Menelaüs, by whom she became the mother of one child, Hermioné. In the absence of her husband she was seduced and carried away to Troy by Paris, the son of Priam, taking with her great treasures. This was the origin of the Trojan War. The Trojans, in spite of the calamity she had brought upon them, loved her for her beauty, and refused to restore her to her husband. She, however, lamented the folly of her youth, and yearned for her home, her husband, and her daughter. After the death of Paris she was wedded to Deïphobus, assisted the Greeks at the taking of Troy, and betrayed Deïphobus into Menelaüs's hands. With Menelaüs she finally returned to Sparta after eight years' wandering, and lived thenceforth with him in happiness and concord.
According to another story, mainly current after the time of Stesichorus, Paris carried off to Troy not the real Helen, but a phantom of her created by Heré. The real Helen was wafted through the air by Hermes, and brought to King Proteus in Egypt, whence, after the destruction of Troy, she was taken home by Menelaüs. (See Herod. ii. 112-120.) After the death of Menelaüs she was, according to one story, driven from Sparta by her step-sons, and fled thereupon to Rhodes to her friend Polyxo, who hanged her on a tree. Another tradition represented her as living after death in wedlock with Achilles on the island of Lencé. She was worshipped as the goddess of beauty in a special sanctuary at Therapné in Laconia, where a festival was held in her honour. She was also invoked, like her brothers the Dioscuri, as a tutelary deity of sailors. (See Dioscuri.)
In the Iliad, Helen is apparently regarded as one who is not responsible for the ruin that she works, two passages seeming to imply that she was carried off by force (ii. 356 and 390). In the Odyssey she is also excused by the fact that she sins because a god has so willed it. (Cf. Odyss. xxiii. 222). Mr. Gladstone in his Homeric studies even regards her as not only a type of womanly loveliness, but of almost Christian penitence as well! The story of Helen has received a splendid setting in the genius of poets of every age. She is the most famous woman of all antiquity. In Goethe's Faust (pt. ii.) she is allegorically introduced as typifying the classical spirit of beauty. In English, see the Hellenics of Walter Savage Landor, Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women, and Andrew Lang's poem Helen of Troy, with the appended essay.
(2) Flavia Iulia, commonly known in ecclesiastical history by the name of St. Helena, the first wife of Constantius Chlorus. She was born of obscure parents, in a village called Drepanum, in Bithynia, which was afterwards raised by her son Constantine to the rank of a city, under the name of Helenopolis. Her husband Constantius, on being made Caesar by Diocletian and Maximian (A.D. 292), repudiated Helena, and married Theodora, daughter of Maximian. Helena withdrew into retirement until her son Constantine, having become emperor, called his mother to court, and gave her the title of Augusta. He also supplied her with large sums of money, which she employed in building and endowing churches, and in relieving the poor. About A.D. 325 she set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine, and, having explored the site of Jerusalem, she thought that she had discovered the sepulchre of Jesus, and also the cross on which he died. With it she is said to have found the crosses of the two thieves, and to have learned which was the true one by the miracle it wrought in restoring to health a sick person to whose bedside it was carried. She built a church on the spot supposed to be that of the Holy Sepulchre, which has continued to be venerated by that name to the present day. She also built a church at Bethlehem, in honour of the nativity of the Saviour. From Palestine she rejoined her son at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, where she expired, in the year 327, at a very advanced age. She is numbered by the Roman Church among the saints, and her festival is August 18th.
(Ἑλένη). A deserted and rugged island in the Aegean, opposite to Thoricus, and extending from that parallel to Sunium. It received its name from the circumstance of Paris having landed on it, as was said, in company with Helen, when they were fleeing from Sparta (Pliny , Pliny H. N. iv. 12; Mela, ii. 7). Strabo, who follows Artemidorus, conceived it to be the Cranaë of Homer (Il. iii. 444). Pliny calls it Macris. The modern name is Macronisi.