An erudite, lively search for the real Helen of Troy-–a chronicle combining historical inquiry & storytelling élan–-from one of Britain’s most widely acclaimed historians. As soon as men began writing they made Helen of Troy their subject. For close to 3000 years she's been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty & a reminder of the terrible power beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus & the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for enmity between East & West. For millennia she's been viewed as an agent of extermination. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Heroic Age who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; Helen of Sparta, the focus of a cult that conflated the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess; the home-wrecker of the Iliad; the bitch-whore of Greek tragedy; the pin-up of Romantic artists. Focusing on the “real” Helen–-a flesh-&-blood aristocrat from the Greek Bronze Age–-Hughes reconstructs the life context of this prehistoric princess. Thru the eyes of a young Mycenaean woman, she examines the physical, historical & cultural traces that Helen has left on locations in Greece, N. Africa & Asia Minor. This book unpacks the facts & myths surrounding one of the most enigmatic & notorious figures of all time. Illustrations Text Acknowledgements Maps Timeline Dramatis Personae Family Trees Foreword & Acknowledgements Introduction Cherchez la femme An evil destiny Helen-hunting Goddess, princess, whore 1. Helen's birth in pre-history A dangerous landscape A rape, a birth The lost citadel The Mycenaeans The pre-historic princess 2. The land of beautiful women The rape of 'fair Hellen' Sparte kalligynaika Tender-eyed girls 3. The world's desire A trophy for heroes The kingmaker A royal wedding 4. Kourotrophos Hermione A welcome burden Helen, high priestess La belle Hélène 5. A lover's game The golden apple Bearing gifts Alexander Helenam Rapuit The female of the species is more deadly than the male 6. Eros & Eris Helen the whore The pain of Aphrodite The sea's foaming lanes 7. Troy beckons East is east & west is west The fair Troad The topless towers of Ilium The golden houses of the east A fleet sets sail 8. Troy besieged Helen, destroyer of cities Death's dark cloud A beautiful death, Kalos Thanatos The fall of Troy 9. Immortal Helen Home to Sparta The death of a queen The age of heroes ends 'Fragrant treasuries' The daughter of the ocean 10. The face that launched a thousand ships Helen in Athens Helen lost & Helen found Helen, Homer & the chances of survival Veyn fables Helen of Troy & the bad Samaritan Perpulchra, more than beautiful Dancing with the devil Helen's nemesis Appendices The Minotaur's island La Parisienne Women of stone & clay & bronze Elemental Helen, she-gods & she-devils Royal purple, the color of congealed blood Epilogue: Myth, history & historia Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index