Menelaus Menelaus In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; , "Menelaos", from μένος "vigor, rage, power" and λαός "people," "wrath of the people") was a king of Mycenaean (pre-Dorian) Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy, and the son of Atreus and Aerope. According to the "Iliad", Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War, leading the Spartan contingent of the Greek army, under his elder brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Prominent in both the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Menelaus was also popular in Greek vase painting and Greek tragedy, the latter more as a hero of the Trojan War than as a
Gorgo, Queen of Sparta one son by Leonidas I, Pleistarchus, co-King of Sparta from 480 BC to his death in 458 BC. Her son was a minor at his father's death, so his uncle Cleombrotus (died 480 BC) and then his first cousin and heir Pausanias (r. 480-479 BC) acted as his regent. It was Pausanias who was the architect of the combined Greek victory at the Battle of Plataea (479 BC). After Pausanias fell into disfavor and was accused of plotting treason, Leonidas's son Pleistarchus ruled with the other king of Sparta, Leotychidas II (and then his grandson Archidamus) until his death 459/458