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
History of Sparta to take advantage of the ensuing chaos, dispatched Philopoemen to Sparta with a large army. Once there, he compelled the Spartans to join the Achaean League ending their independence. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BC when the Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. Subsequently, Sparta become a free city in the Roman sense, some of the institutions of Lycurgus were restored and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs. The former Perioecic communities were not restored to Sparta and some