Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen’s return. Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, Aphrodite spirits Paris away inside the walls of Troy. In Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel’s winner, Athena inspires the Trojan Pandarus to shoot Menelaus with his bow and arrow. However, Athena never intended for Menelaus to die and she protects him from the arrow of Pandarus. Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended "aristeia" as the hero retrieves the corpse of
Menelaus (son of Lagus) appointed by his brother to the chief command of the forces dispatched to Cyprus, where they were destined to co-operate with the fleet of Seleucus, and with Nicocreon, king of Salamis. By their combined efforts, they soon reduced all the cities of Cyprus to subjection, with the exception of Citium; and that also, it would appear, must have ultimately submitted. Menelaus now remained in the island, which he governed with almost absolute authority, the petty princes of the several cities being deposed, imprisoned, or assassinated on the slightest symptom of disaffection. He still held the chief command in 306 BC,