e, the son of Aphrodite, the beloved of gods and men, escaped the
universal carnage with his son and his old father Anchises, whom he carried
on his shoulders out of the city. He first sought refuge on Mount Ida, and
afterwards fled to Italy, where he became the ancestral hero of the Roman
people.

Menelaus now sought Helen in the royal palace, who, being immortal, still
retained all her former beauty and fascination. A reconciliation took
place, and she accompanied her husband on his homeward voyage. Andromache,
the widow of the brave Hector, was given in marriage to Neoptolemus,
Cassandra fell to the share of Agamemnon, and Hecuba, the gray-haired and
widowed queen, was made prisoner by Odysseus.

The boundless treasures of the wealthy Trojan king fell into the hands of
the Greek heroes, who, after having levelled the city of Troy to the
ground, prepared for their homeward voyage.

RETURN OF THE GREEKS FROM TROY.

During the sacking of the city of Troy the Greeks, in the hour of victory,
committed many acts of desecration and cruelty, which called down upon them
the wrath of the {305} gods, for which reason their homeward voyage was
beset with manifold dangers and disasters, and many perished before they
reached their native land.

Nestor, Diomedes, Philoctetes, and Neoptolemus were among those who arrived
safely in Greece after a prosperous voyage. The vessel which carried
Menelaus and Helen was driven by violent tempests to the coast of Egypt,
and only after many years of weary wanderings and vicissitudes did they
succeed in reaching their home at Sparta.

Ajax the Lesser having offended Pallas-Athene by desecrating her temple on
the night of the destruction of Troy, was shipwrecked off Cape Caphareus.
He succeeded, however, in clinging to a rock, and his life might have been
spared but for his impious boast that he needed not the help of the gods.
No sooner had he uttered the sacrilegious words than Poseidon, enraged at
his audacity, split with his trident the rock to which the hero was
clinging, and the unfortunate Ajax was overwhelmed by the waves.

FATE OF AGAMEMNON.--The homeward voyage of Agamemnon was tolerably
uneventful and prosperous; but on his arrival at Mycenae misfortune and ruin
awaited him.

His wife Clytemnestra, in revenge for the sacrifice of her beloved daughter
Iphigenia, had formed a secret alliance during his absence with AEgisthus,
the son of Thyestes, and on the return of Agamemnon t