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
History of Sparta experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later testified by both Herodotus and Thucydides. As a result, they carried out a series of political and social reforms of their own society which they later attributed to a semi-mythical lawgiver, Lycurgus. These reforms mark the beginning of the history of Classical Sparta. It is during the reign of King Charillos, that most ancient sources place the life of Lycurgus. Indeed, the Spartans ascribed their subsequent success to Lycurgus, who instituted his reforms at a time when Sparta was weakened by internal dissent and lacked the stability of a united and