308 HISTORY OF GREECE. had committed towards Menelaus, had sen'; him away from the country with severe menaces, detaining Helen until her lawful husband should come to seek her. When the Greeks reclaimed Helen from Troy, the Trojans assured them solemnly, that she neither was, nor ever had been, in the town ; but the Greeks, treating this allegation as fraudulent, prosecuted the siege until their ultimate success confirmed the correctness of the statement, nor did Menelaus recover Helen until, on his return from Troy, he visited Egypt. 1 Such was the story told by the Egyptian priests to Herodotus, and it appeared satisfactory to his his- toricizing mind. " For if Helen had really been at Troy (he argues) she would certainly have been given up, even had she been mistress of Priam himself instead of Paris : the Trojan king, with all his family and all his subjects, would never know- ingly have incurred utter and irretrievable destruction for the purpose of retaining her : their misfortune was, that while they did not possess, and therefore could not restore her, they yet found it impossible to convince the Greeks that such was the fact." 'Assuming the historical character of the war of Troy, the remark of Herodotus admits of no reply ; nor can we great- ly wonder that he acquiesced in the tale of Helen's Egyptian detention, as a substitute for the " incredible insanity" which the 1 Herodot. ii. 120. ov yup drj OVTU ye 0pex>o/3/la/?^f TJV 6 Tlpiafiof, ovS 1 ol uTihoi -npoariKovTee airw, etc. The passage is too long to cite, but is highly curious : not the least remarkable part is the religious coloring which he gives to the new version of the story which he is adopting, "the Trojans, though they had not got Helen, yet could not persuade the Greeks that this was the fact ; for it was the divine will that they should be destroyed root and branch, in order to make it plain to mankind that upon great crimes the gods inflict great punishments." Dio Chrysostom (Or. xi. p. 333) reasons in the same way as Herodotus against the credibility of the received narrative. On the other hand, Iso- krates, in extolling Helen, dwells on the calamities of the Trojan war as a test of the peerless value of the prize CEncom. Hel. p. 360, Aug.) : in the view of Pindar (Olymp. xiii. 56), as well as in that of Hesiod (Opp. Di. 165), Helen is the one prize contended for. Euripides, in his tragedy of Helen, recognizes the detention of Helen in Egypt and the presence of her eUuhov at Troy, but he follows Stesichorus in denying her elopement altogether, Hermes had carried her to Egypt in a cloud (Helen. 35-45, 706) : compare Von Hoff, DC Mytho Hclenoe Euri- pideffi, cap. 2. p. 35 (Leydcn, 1843).
