Menelaus in Archaic Art

This chapter explores the depiction of Menelaus in archaic art. Menelaus appears in Greek art by the mid-seventh century BC and continues to be depicted by artists into the classical period and beyond. One may roughly divide images of Menelaus into two categories: ‘with Helen’ and ‘everything else’. Early on, ‘everything else’—depictions of Menelaus without Helen—is in fact more frequent, so far as one can tell from the few images that remain. By the mid-sixth century, however, Menelaus is depicted with Helen almost exclusively. Menelaus-Helen images have been studied by art historians and philologists from the standpoint of Helen. Scant attention has been given, however, to what the pictures ‘say’ about Menelaus. Even though certain iconographic details change somewhat over the course of the sixth century, there is a mostly stable and coherent depiction of Menelaus in black- and early red-figure Athenian vases that differs from his depiction in the classical period. The chapter then provides an annotated catalogue of the known images in which Menelaus appears without Helen.