This brings us to my final installment of the Three Faces of Helen. The first is a Proto-Indo-European goddess, the second we know from Homer’s Iliad. The third might be a Mycenaean princess who married an Anatolian king or prince and inspired the second. But what connects the last two “Helens” to the divine one? Historians like Barry Strauss might entertain the notion of princess “eloping” (in their view) and thus sparking a war, but why would this act be the basis of such an enduring legend, and why would the woman involved become our most enduring icon (perhaps the world’s)?
We know that in the Bronze Age, a royal marriage gone wrong could lead to war but no one composed timeless epics about them, although in one example we know, the unfortunate princess almost certainly paid with her life. What makes Helen different? Keep reading…
