Judgement of Paris the three goddesses stripped nude to convince Paris of their worthiness. While Paris inspected them, each attempted with her powers to bribe him; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song (according to a fragment of the "Cypria" quoted by Athenagoras of Athens), offered the world's most beautiful woman (Euripides, "Andromache", l.284, "Helena" l. 676). This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite's gift and awarded the apple
History of Sparta the decarchs that had been established by Lysander in former states of the Athenian Empire and ordered the former governments restored. The two major powers in the eastern Mediterranean in the 5th century BC had been Athens and Sparta. The defeat of Athens by Sparta resulted in Spartan hegemony in the early 4th century BC. Sparta's close relationship with Cyrus the Younger continued when she gave covert support to his attempt to seize the Persian throne. After Cyrus was killed at the Battle of Cunaxa, Sparta briefly attempted to be conciliatory towards Artaxerxes, the Persian king. In late 401 BC,