Concurrently, the sophists – a movement of teachers who incorporated philosophy and rhetoric into their occupation – were beginning to question traditional values and religious beliefs.

About thirty years before this play, Herodotus argued in his Histories that Helen had never in fact arrived at Troy, but was in Egypt during the entire Trojan War.

His son Theoclymenus, the new king with a penchant for killing Greeks, intends to marry Helen, who after all these years remains loyal to her husband Menelaus.

[2] Euripides expands more on this idea by presenting his play largely from Helen’s point of view, revealing how she truly feels about being the symbolic villain of the Trojan War.

Helen’s character in the play is deeply affected by the losses of the people who have died fighting to bring her back to her homeland and husband and expresses this guilt frequently: “The wrecked city of Ilium / is given up to the teeth of fire, / all through me and the deaths I caused, / all for my name of affliction” (lines 196-198).

Despite this guilt, she also feels anger for being made into a symbol that people can project their hate on, even though they do not know her: “I have done nothing wrong and yet my reputation / is bad, and worse than a true evil is it to bear / the burden of faults that are not truly yours” (lines 270-272).

Although she spends a lot of the beginning of the play feeling pity for the men who have died and herself as well, Euripides’ Helen is independent, confident, and intelligent.

Therefore, Euripides in his play portrays a living and breathing Helen filled with compassion and wit, not at all similar to the blameworthy person others believe her to be.