Menelaus Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. After concluding a diplomatic mission to Sparta during the latter part of which Menelaus was absent to attend the funeral of his maternal grandfather Catreus in Crete, Paris ran off to Troy with Helen despite his brother Hector's prohibition. Invoking the oath of Tyndareus, Menelaus and Agamemnon raised a fleet of a thousand ships and went to Troy to secure Helen's return; the Trojans refused, providing a "casus belli" for the Trojan War. Homer's "Iliad" is the most expansive source for Menelaus’s exploits during the Trojan War. In Book 3, Menelaus
Mentes (King of the Cicones) Mentes (King of the Cicones) In the Iliad, Mentes (Μέντης) is the King of the Cicones. In Book XVII of The Iliad, Apollo disguises himself as Mentes to encourage Hector to fight Menelaus, ("Hector, now you're going after something you'll not catch, chasing the horses of warrior Achilles, descendant of Aeacus. No mortal man, except Achilles, can control or drive them, for an immortal mother gave him birth. Meanwhile, warrior Menelaus, Atreus' son, standing by Patroclus, has just killed the best man of the Trojans, Euphorbus, son of Panthous, ending his brave fight.") This is the only reference to the