The Menelaion
A few days ago when I posted about Bronze Age Sparta, I also posted an image of the Menelaion which some readers took to be the ruins of Menelaus's royal palace. The Menelaion was but one of several constructions in the area; the royal site of Therapne contains a number of Mycenaean ruins spread over the neighboring hills.
The Menelaion is a type of monument known as a heroon, which is dedicated to the practice of cult hero worship. A reader asked me why the ancients would worship Helen, who brought such destruction and suffering to her people. It's important to remember that the ancient Greek definition of "hero" is not our Judeo-Christian one. Greek heroes (and heroines) were often of semi-divine birth--definitely not ordinary folk like you or I--who performed great deeds and were subject to great suffering; they were not worshipped because they were nice people, but because people believed they could intervene in a crisis. Agamemnon, for example, had a hero cult at Mycenae. Herakles had a hero cult, as did Theseus and Orestes. Helen was one of the few women who had hero-cult status.
There is an apocryphal story about Helen from Classical Sparta which illustrates the kind of power the ancient Greeks believed she had. Once upon a time there lived a very ugly girl whose nurse took her to a shrine to leave an offering for Helen. While there, the pair encountered a most mysterious and beautiful woman who kissed the girl on the brow and blessed her. From that day forward, the girl grew in beauty, and was held to be so lovely that she eventually married one of the Spartan kings. Helen could bestow beauty and kharis, also known as charisma, or what we commonly refer to as sex appeal. She might also have been worshipped as a kind of fertility goddess.
Why was Menelaus, a second-rate warrior and history's most famous cuckold, worshipped? Because of his association with Helen. One version of myth holds that, as Zeus's son-in-law, Menelaus is assured a place with Helen in the Elysian Fields--although, if yet another variation on myth plays out, he's going to have sit by while Helen marries Achilles.
The Menelaion monument tourists visit today was erected in the fifth century B.C. Under this limestone construction are strata containing remains of earlier shrines. Around the monument, archaeologists have discovered many votive objects specifically dedicated to Menelaus and Helen. One vessel, an arbyllos, is inscribed: "ΔΕΙΝΙΣ ΑΝΕΘEΚΕ [ΕΛΕΝΗΙ, ΣΥΖΥΓΟΝ] ΜΕΝΕΛΑΪ" (Deinis offered to Helen, wife of Menelaus). Hairpins have been found dedicated to Helen. A stone tablet found in a cistern was dedicated to Menelaus.
Elsewhere, on a nearby hill, archaeologists discovered Mycenaean ruins dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries B.C. These appeared to be the remains of a very small, second-rate palace that many archaeologists doubted could be that of Menelaus and Helen. However, the hill on which these ruins stand is prone to wind and erosion; what remains are probably the storerooms/basement of a much larger structure that has since dropped off into the ravine below. If you are interested in the palace of Therapne, Bettany Hughes in her 2005 documentary Helen of Troy visits the site and discusses its condition.
