Unlocking the Mystery of the Beauty that Launched a Thousand Ships

Homer’s Iliad relates gruesome details of the horrific war between the Achaians and the Trojans over the beautiful Helen of Sparta. The question in every reader’s mind: How could the beauty of one woman inspire such devastation? How could Helen’s face launch a thousand ships? 

Myth unlocks this mystery, revealing that much more than Helen’s beauty inspired the legendary ten-year war. Rather, the promise of a goddess and the oath of suitors lead to the destruction of Priam’s citadel.

The Trojan cycle begins not with the kidnapping of a queen but with a divine wedding. Zeus, king of the gods, is giving the nymph Thetis to the Argonaut sailor Peleus, and all the major immortals are invited to join the wedding celebration. The guest list, however, ignores Eris, the goddess of chaos, greatly offending the minor deity. 

Much like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, a furious Eris crashes the wedding celebration. She rolls a golden apple inscribed with “for the fairest of them all” amongst the three preeminent goddesses — Hera, goddess of marriage and wife of Zeus; Athena, goddess of wisdom and war; and Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. Each goddess claims the apple as her own, sparking great discord. 

Wisely avoiding settling the dispute himself, Zeus appoints a hapless shepherd boy wandering through the grove as judge over the matter. To win the shepherd’s favor, each goddess promises him a reward for choosing her: Hera, a transcontinental empire; Athena, victory over the Greeks in war; and Aphrodite, the most beautiful woman for a wife. The young shepherd boy chooses Aphrodite, winning himself her everlasting favor, the most beautiful wife, and the eternal hatred of Hera and Athena.  

This shepherd is none other than Paris, the lost prince of Troy. At birth, his mother dreamed her newborn son was a burning brand that would destroy Troy, a prophecy often referenced in The Iliad. Fearful of the omen, Priam exposes infant Paris, only for him to be rescued by a local shepherd and become the judge of the fairest of the goddesses. 

This episode, known as the Judgment of Paris, explains many things from The Iliad: Hera and Athena’s unmoving hatred toward the Trojans, Aphrodite’s consistent favoring of Paris, and the goddess’s seductive part in the kidnapping of Helen. What it doesn’t explain is the overwhelming Achaian response. 

Soon after the Judgment, Paris is restored to his father, city, and princely status and sent on an official embassy to Sparta. Here he cashes in Aphrodite’s promise and kidnaps the beautiful Queen Helen. Little does he know that the Achaian kings are sworn to defend her husband’s rights. 

Born of the mighty Zeus and mortal Leda, Helen possesses supernatural beauty. Fearing the violence, kidnapping, and strife her divine beauty will cause, her mortal stepfather Tyndareus hesitates giving her away in marriage to any of her suitors, among whom are the leading men of Achaia, including the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and Odysseus. 

To solve the problem, Odysseus advises that all her suitors take an oath to defend the marriage rights of her husband. All the suitors agree and swear to defend her husband’s rights should they be challenged. Only then does Tyndareus give Helen to Menelaus of Mycenae and bequeath him Tyndareus’ kingdom of Sparta. 

Years later, after Paris subverts his rights by kidnapping Helen, Menelaus calls upon her past suitors to fulfill their oaths and win his wife back. Forced by their oaths and duty, the suitors come to Menelaus’s aid and gather thousands of men to sail for Troy. 

Thus, it was not solely a feminine beauty that launched a thousand ships and caused thousands of  deaths, both Achaian and Trojan, but rather the unforgiving clash of divine and mortal promises.