Menelaus

Menelaus
King of Sparta
Member of the Achaeans
Marble bust of Menelaus, Vatican Museums
Personal information
Parents	Atreus and Aerope
Siblings	Agamemnon
Consort	Helen
Offspring	Hermione, Nicostratus, Megapenthes, Pleisthenes

In Greek mythology, Menelaus (/ˌmɛnəˈleɪ.əs/; Greek: Μενέλαος Menelaos, 'wrath of the people',^[1] from Ancient Greek μένος (menos) 'vigor, rage, power', and λαός (laos) 'people') was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre-Dorian) Sparta. According to the Iliad, the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus’s wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War, leading the Spartan contingent of the Greek army, under his elder brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Prominent in both the Iliad and Odyssey, Menelaus was also popular in Greek vase painting and Greek tragedy, the latter more as a hero of the Trojan War than as a member of the doomed House of Atreus.