Free Helen of Troy by Bettany Hughes

closely as they dined together, she might have left her hand in his just a moment too long as they said goodnight. But so far, so good. Things are as they should be. The regal host has her fine gifts, the Trojan prince his audience with the representative of a foreign super-power.
    All would have been well had not Menelaus, the dutiful grandson, dallied one night too many with a Cretan concubine after burying his grand-father Catreus. But dally he did, and in the heat of that Mediterranean night it was not Menelaus’ but Paris’ shadow that fell across Helen’s threshold. The bards’ audience must have enjoyed sucking in their cheeks with disapproval as the story unfolded: ‘Isn’t it terrible, do tell me more.’ For visual artists down the centuries the fascination with Helen’s abduction or rape – her
enlèvement
– has also proved resolute.
    The Louvre Palace and Museum in Paris holds several representations of
l’enlèvement d’Hélène
. With its marble floors, Greek columns and rooms full of treasure, the Louvre is a labyrinthine place. A Mycenaean princess might have felt at home here; she could even have admired the Cyclopean architecture of the new extension – an appropriate place to go Helen-hunting. But just as the Louvre has cherry-picked its architectural inspiration from the ancient world, similarly, the depictions of Helen in the museum show that throughout history this Peloponnesian girl has been represented in a subjective and pernicious way.
    One crisp December day I visited the Louvre, in my search for Helen,armed with a list of archive references and the numbers of scores of display cases; I was expecting a visual journey through Helen’s life. 7 Instead, what I saw was a catalogue of sexual violence. Throughout the ages, whether in the illuminations of a medieval manuscript, on a grand canvas or a ceramic plate destined for the Pope’s table, artists and their patrons have wanted to remember one thing above all else: the fact that Helen was taken by force. I spent an afternoon looking at thirty ways to rape a woman.
    On one platter, almost 18 inches (45 cm) in diameter, painted by Avelli in 1540, a muscly Helen has become the subject of a tug of war. 8 Watched over by a kindergarten golden sunset whose neat rays are reflected in the seething, swirling sea, Spartan guards drag Helen back by her cloak, while the Trojans, with their arms around her waist, manhandle her onto their waiting boat. Helen grabs one of the Trojans by the hair; she is desperate. On another plate made in the same year, Helen is strangely childlike. 9 Innocent and sexual at the same time, half-naked, she clings to her captor with her legs wrapped around him. She looks as though she is being given a piggy-back, but her eyes, wide with shock and terror, tell a darker story.
    A medallion, just 10 cm across, primarily monochrome with a hint of blue, shows an anguished Helen surrounded by a rough, primitive looking crowd – wild men from the East who apparently cannot wait to sully this pure Greek beauty. 10 A bronze statuette from the 18th century has a more positive passion. Only a couple of feet high, the two figures dominate the room. Originally this piece could be seen in the Palais des Tuileries during the reign of Louis XV. Helen and Paris are caught up in a whirlwind of their own creation. The artwork is vital. Helen surges above Paris, he stares up at her, and their clothes billow around them. She seems weightless, his face lifted by hers rather than she by his arms. 11
    It was that moment of passion enjoyed by Paris and Helen – a moment not of violence but ‘
ate
’ 12 (abandonment or delusion) – that brought about the deaths of thousands of men, women and children, and tied up the Greek heroes in a pointless and protracted war. One sexual slip that took on epic proportions. A peccadillo that grew in popular imagination until men like Herodotus could write of it in his
Histories
: ‘… great crimes are