\b0 Daughter of \b \cf4 \ATXht8 Zeus\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and \b \cf4 \ATXht11206 Leda\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , sister of \b \cf4 \ATXht10326 Clytemnestra\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and the \b \cf4 \ATXht10410 Dioscuri\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , she was considered the most beautiful woman of the Greek world. While still very young she was carried off by \b \cf4 \ATXht12010 Theseus\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , who
took her to Attica and married her, but was brought back to \b \cf4 \ATXht11914 Sparta\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 by the Dioscuri. She then attracted the attention of many nobles, from whom she chose the obscure \b \cf4 \ATXht11309 Menelaus\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 . Subse
quently, she was seduced by \b \cf4 \ATXht11606 Paris\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , whom she followed to \b \cf4 \ATXht12019 Troy\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , arousing the ire of her former suitors. This was the pretext for the ten-year Trojan War. On the death of Paris, she m
arried her brother-in-law Deiphobus but, after the capture of the city, was reconciled with Menelaus. She went back to Sparta with him, where she bore \b \cf4 \ATXht10814 Hermione\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and became a paragon of all the domestic virtues. The acc
ounts of her death are divergent. One tradition holds that she was deified along with her husband Menelaus, another that she was banished from Sparta and sought refuge in Rhodes, but was hanged there. In the tales of the Mysteries, she married \b \cf4 \ATXht10104 Achilles \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and lived with him forever on the island of Leuca, located at the mouth of the Danube.
