Or Meneleôs, or Menelas, a son of Atreus, and younger brother of Agamemnon and Anaxibia. He was king of Lacedaemon, and married to the beautiful Helen, by whom he was the father of Hermione and Megapenthes. When his wife Helen had been carried off by Paris, Menelaus and Odysseus set out to Troy to claim her back. Menelaus was hospitably treated by Antenor, but the journey was of no avail, and the Trojan Antimachus even advised his fellow-citizens to kill Menelaus and Odysseus. In order, therefore, to avenge the rape of Helen, and to punish the offender, Menelaus and his brother resolved to march against Troy with all the forces that Greece could muster. The two brothers, in their travels through Greece to rouse the chiefs to avenge the insult offered to a Greek prince, also visited Odysseus in Ithaca, along with whom Menelaus is said to have consulted the Delphic oracle about the expedition against Troy; and at Delphi he dedicated the necklace of Helen to Athena Pronoea. Hereupon Menelaus in sixty ships led the inhabitants of Lacedaemon, Pharis, Sparta, Messe, Bryseiae, Amyclae, Helos, Laas, and Oetylus, against Troy. In Troas he was under the special protection of Hera and Athena, and one of the most gallant heroes, who slew many Trojans, such as Scamandrius, Pylaemenes, Peisander, Dolops, Thoas, Euphorbus and Podes.