Page 369 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

THE SACK OF TROY

1230-1160 B.C.

Th e two boys had grown up together within the great

rambling fortress of Mycenae. Agamemnon was the elder by a
couple of years, and tended to be vaguely protective towards his
fair-haired younger brother. Menelaus accepted this attitude,
and cheerfully followed his brother’s lead in games and
weapon training, even though by the time he was ten he could
outstrip Agamemnon in the races and throw his spear with
greater accuracy though not so far as his sturdier brother.
They were left much to the care of the womenfolk and
the older men, for of course their father Atreus was away from
Greece most years with the long ships and the fighting men, raid­
ing somewhere or other along the Mediterranean shores. In fact
one of Menelaus’s earliest recollections was of the return of his
father at the beginning of the winter in which his fifth birthday
fell. Menelaus had been picked up by a burly bearded giant
whom he gradually came to realize was his father, and forced
to sit on his knee while Agamemnon stood straight and serious
beside his chair. And, only half understanding, he heard the
story of the voyage from which his father had just returned. It
had lasted all of three years, that voyage, for it was not one of
the private plundering ventures. No, this had been a large-scale
assault on the Egyptian seaboard, organized by their cousins,
the kings of Libya. It was from Libya that the greatest number
of fighting men had come, but when the news of the planned
campaign got around, free companies had assembled from al­
most all the seafaring peoples of Europe and Asia Minor. In