Menelaus to Crete and Egypt where they were becalmed, unable to sail away. They trapped Proteus, and forced him to reveal how to make the voyage home. After their homecoming, Menelaus and Helen’s marriage is strained; Menelaus continually revisits the losses of the Trojan War, particularly as he and Helen have no male heir. Menelaus is fond of Megapenthes and Nicostratus, his sons by other women. According to Euripides’ "Helen", Menelaus is reunited with Helen after death, on the Isle of the Blessed. Menelaus appears in Greek vase painting in the 6th to 4th centuries BC, such as: Menelaus’s reception of
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,