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Ancient

Homer

but for his son he was bringing to his home from Sparta the daughter of Alector, even for the stalwart Megapenthes, who was his son well-beloved,1 born of a slave woman;

Now Menelaus had by Helen a daughter Hermione and, according to some, a son Nicostratus; and by a female slave Pieris, an Aetolian, or, according to Acusilaus, by Tereis, he had a son Megapenthes;² and by a nymph Cnossia, according to Eumelus, he had a son Xenodamus.

² Compare Hom. Od. 4.10-12.

Pausanias

2.18.6

When Orestes became king of the Lacedaemonians, they themselves consented to accept him for they considered that the sons of the daughter of Tyndareus had a claim to the throne prior to that of Nicostratus and Megapenthes, who were sons of Menelaus by a slave woman.

Modern

Fowler

2000

p. 26

Acusilas Argeus

41

Apollod. Bibl. 3.11.1 (3.133, p. 145 Wagner). ...

2013

p. 529

§18.2.2 MEGAPENTHES AND THE CHILDREN OF MENELAOS (Akous. fr. 41; Eumel. fr. 6)

Akous. fr. 41 says that Megapenthes was the illegitimate son of Menelaos and a slave woman Tereis. Homer has a role for this son in Odyssey 4 and 14, and mentions his slave mother at 4.12, without naming her. This started the game of guessing her identity. The scholia to the Odyssey passage and Apollodorus relate some of the suggestions, most of which are merely ethnics, a common way of naming slaves.²⁶ Akousilaos' 'Tereis', though not an ethnic, may have Thracian associations (cf. Tereus); it is a unique name (not in LGPN), and could be corrupt (comapre variants cited in the apparatus). Eumel. fr. 6, quoted by Apollodorus in the same place, mentions another illegitimate son, Xenodamos (if he were legitimate, he would have mentioned his mother; Κνωσσία, unattested as a proper name, is another ethnic).

Grimal

s.v. Megapenthes 1

(Μεγαπένθς) [sic!]

The name (meaning 'great sorrow') of an illegitimate son of Menelaus, who was born while Helen was away. His mother was a slave, in some versions called Pieris and in others Tereis (Table 13). Menelaus married him to the daughter of Alector of Sparta. Since he was illegitimate, the Lacedaemonians would not let him succeed Menelaus. The throne went to Orestes. Another story said that after the death of Menelaus, when Orestes was still mad and being pursued by the Erinyes, Megapenthes and his half-brother Nicostratus (the son of Menelaus and Helen; but see MENELAUS) had driven HELEN out. She found safety in Rhodes with Polyxo.

Tripp

s.v. Megapenthes (2)

A son of Menelaüs by a slave women, Pieris or Tereïs. Menelaüs married Megapenthes to Alector's daughter. After their father's death, Megapenthes and his brother Nicostratus, were said by the Rhodians to have driven Helen from Sparta. However, their claims to the throne were passed over in favor of those of Orestes. [Homer, Odyssey, 4.10-12; Pausanias 2.18.-6, 3.10.9.]