Menelaus, Brother to Agamemnon, and sonne of Atreus. Hee was king of Sparta, and husband of the beautifull Oueen Helen, Whom when Paris king Priamus his sonne in his absence had stole away, hee sente Ambassadours to requirehir to be restored againe. But when they returned in vain, this Menelaus with his brother Agamemnon incited all the princes of Greece with cruell war to reuenge that villany. Wherfore they affembling to the number of a thousãd shippes, swore neuer to returne, vntil they had broughte Troy to confusion. After they had wasted and destroyed all the countrey of Phrygia, they besieged Troy the royal citie the space well ueere of tenne yeares, and after great slaughter both on the one parte & the other, at the length by guile and treason, rather then by force and manhoode, they man the citie, and burnt it to the ground: and so recouered Mrnelaus againe his beautifull wife. With whom he taking shipping to returne, after eight yeares traneyle on the seas & in straunge countreys, at the lÊgth came home to Sparta. So much to do had he, ere he could bring home againe hys faire and famous strumpet.
Lewis and Short: Latin dictionary
Mĕnĕlaĭus, i, m., a mountain in Laconia, on the Eurotas, near Sparta, Liv. 34, 28.
Mĕnĕlāüs, i, m., = *mene/laos. I.Son of Atreus, brother of Agamemnon, and husband of Helen, who eloped from him with Paris, Cic. Brut. 13, 50; id. Rep. 5, 9, 14; Auct. Her. 3, 21, 34; Ov. M. 13, 203; id. A. A. 2, 359.—B.Transf., a cuckold.— Jestingly of M. Lucullus,
whose wife was seduced by C. Memmius
, Cic. Att. 1, 18, 3.—II. Menelaus Marathenus, a Greek rhetorician, from the old Phœnician city of Marathus, Cic. Brut. 26, 100.—III. Menelai portus, a city with a port of the same name on the shore of the Mediterranean, between Cyrene and Egypt, Nep. Ages. 8, 6; also called Menelaita urbs, Edict. Justin. 13, 9, 2.—Hence, adj.: Mĕnĕlāĕus, a, um, of Menelaus, Prop. 2, 15 (3, 7), 14.