Four Last Songs (Vaughan Williams) song of the cycle "Menelaus." The character Menelaus appears both in Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey". Menelaus is the King of Sparta whose wife, Helen, was taken from him by Paris to Troy. Together with his brother Agamemnon, fellow ruler Odysseus, and other warriors, Menelaus launched the Trojan War to regain his wife and return her to Sparta. In "The Odyssey", Odysseus' son Telemachus visits Menelaus in attempts to obtain news of his father who has not yet returned from the war. The Vaughan Williams' drew inspiration from Menelaus' description to Telemachus of the things Odysseus must do to
Theopompus of Sparta is some evidence that his successor was Anaxandridas I, father of Zeuxidamus. According to Plutarch, it was in Theopompus' reign that the ephors were introduced in Sparta. Theopompus of Sparta Theopompus () was a Eurypontid king of Sparta. He is believed to have reigned during the late 8th and early 7th century BC. Sparta was a dyarchy, having two kings at the same time, an Agiad and a Eurypontid. Theopompus was the son and successor to the Eurypontid king Nicander. The major event of his reign was the First Messenian War, which resulted in the defeat of the Messenians, for