Menelaus Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. After concluding a diplomatic mission to Sparta during the latter part of which Menelaus was absent to attend the funeral of his maternal grandfather Catreus in Crete, Paris ran off to Troy with Helen despite his brother Hector's prohibition. Invoking the oath of Tyndareus, Menelaus and Agamemnon raised a fleet of a thousand ships and went to Troy to secure Helen's return; the Trojans refused, providing a "casus belli" for the Trojan War. Homer's "Iliad" is the most expansive source for Menelaus’s exploits during the Trojan War. In Book 3, Menelaus
Hippocoon (king of Sparta) Cepheus' sons did survive). Hippocoon (king of Sparta) In Greek mythology, Hippocoön (; Ancient Greek: Ἱπποκόων) was a Spartan king. Hippocoon was the son of the Spartan King Oebalus and Bateia. His brothers (or half-brothers) were Tyndareus and Icarius. Names of Hippocoön's sons include Lycon, Alcinous, Dorycleus, Scaeus, Enarophorus, Eurytus, Bucolus, Euteiches, Lycaethus, Hippothous, Tebrus, Hippocorystes, Alcimus, Dorceus, Sebrus, Eumedes, Enaesimus, Alcon and Leucippus (the last three were among the Calydonian hunters). Diodorus Siculus states that there were twenty of them, but gives no individual names. When their father died, Tyndareus became king. Hippocoön, with the help of his sons,