2.115.4
Finally, Proteus declared the following judgment to them, saying, “If I did not make it a point never to kill a stranger who has been caught by the wind and driven to my coasts, I would have punished you on behalf of the Greek, you most vile man. You committed the gravest impiety after you had had your guest-friend's hospitality: you had your guest-friend's wife.
2.115.5
And as if this were not enough, you got her to fly with you and went off with her. And not just with her, either, but you plundered your guest-friend's wealth and brought it, too.
2.115.6
Now, then, since I make it a point not to kill strangers, I shall not let you take away this woman and the wealth, but I shall watch them for the Greek stranger, until he come and take them away; but as for you and your sailors, I warn you to leave my country for another within three days, and if you do not, I will declare war on you.”
ch. 116
2.116.1
This, the priests said, was how Helen came to Proteus. And, in my opinion, Homer knew this story, too; but seeing that it was not so well suited to epic poetry as the tale of which he made use, he rejected it, showing that he knew it.
2.116.2
This is apparent from the passage in the Iliad
(and nowhere else does he return to the story) where he relates the wanderings of Alexander, and shows how he and Helen were carried off course, and wandered to, among other places, Sidon in Phoenicia.
2.116.3
This is in the story of the Prowess of Diomedes, where the verses run as follows:
There were the robes, all embroidered,
The work of women of Sidon, whom godlike Alexandrus himself
Brought from Sidon, crossing the broad sea,
The same voyage on which he brought back Helen of noble descent.
Hom. Il. 6.289-92
2.116.4
[He mentions it in the Odyssey
also:
The daughter of Zeus had such ingenious drugs,
Good ones, which she had from Thon's wife, Polydamna, an Egyptian,
Whose country's fertile plains bear the most drugs,
Many mixed for good, many for harm:
Hom. Od. 4.227-30 ]
2.116.5
and again Menelaus says to Telemachus:
I was eager to return here, but the gods still held me in Egypt,
Since I had not sacrificed entire hecatombs to them.
Hom. Od. 4. 351-2
2.116.6
In these verses the poet shows that he knew of Alexander's wanderings to Egypt; for Syria borders on Egypt, and the Phoenicians, to whom Sidon belongs, dwell in Syria.
ch. 117
2.117.1
These verses and this passage prove most clearly that the Cyprian poems are not the work of Homer but of someone else. For the Cyprian poems relate that Alexandrus reached Ilion with Helen in three days from Sparta, having a fair wind and a smooth sea; but according to the Iliad
, he wandered from his course in bringing her.
ch. 118
2.118.1
Enough, then, of Homer and the Cyprian poems. But, when I asked the priests whether the Greek account of what happened at Troy were idle or not, they gave me the following answer, saying that they had inquired and knew from Menelaus himself.
2.118.2
After the rape of Helen, a great force of Greeks came to the Trojan land on Menelaus' behalf. After disembarking and disposing their forces, they sent messengers to Ilion, one of whom was Menelaus himself.
