“ HELEN, or Helena (Gr. Ἑλένη) ,in Greek mythology, daughter of Zeus by Leda (wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta) , sister of Castor, Pollux and Clytaemnestra, and wife of Menelaus. Other accounts make her the daughter of Zeus and Nemesis, or of Oceanus and Tethys. She was the most beautiful woman in Greece, and indirectly the cause of the Trojan war. When a child she was carried off from Sparta by Theseus to Attica, but was recovered and taken back by her brothers. When she grew up, the most famous of the princes of Greece sought her hand in marriage, and her father’s choice fell upon Menelaus. ”

“ At Rhodes she was worshipped under the name of Dendritis (the tree goddess) , where the inhabitants built a temple in her honour to expiate the crime of Polyxo. The Rhodian story probably contains a reference to the worship connected with her name (cf. Theocritus xviii. 48 σέβου μ ̓, Ἑλένας φυτὸν εἰμί) . She was the subject of a tragedy by Euripides and an epic by Colluthus. ”