Menelaus Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Tyndareus’s niece Penelope, the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband in any quarrel. Then it was decreed that straws were to be drawn for Helen’s hand. The suitor who won was Menelaus (Tyndareus, not to displease the powerful Agamemnon offered him another of his daughters, Clytaemnestra). The rest of the suitors swore their oaths, and Helen and Menelaus were married, Menelaus becoming a ruler of Sparta with Helen after
Menelaus (son of Lagus) Menelaus (son of Lagus) Menelaus (; , "Menelaos"), son of Lagus and brother of Ptolemy I Soter (ruler of Egypt), served as priest of the eponymous state cult of Alexander, and was for a time king in Cyprus, under his brother. His name does not occur among the officers or generals of Alexander the Great (336–323 BC) during the lifetime of that monarch, though it is incidentally mentioned by Phylarchus in terms that would seem to imply that he then already occupied a distinguished position. The first occasion on which he appears in history is 315 BC, when he was