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Menelaus is the king of Sparta. He is the brother of Agamemnon and the husband of Helen. He helped lead the Greeks in the Trojan War after Helen was abducted by Paris and Aphrodite, before the events of the text. Menelaus is the second king that Telemachus meets on his journey to discover his father’s fate. However, unlike Nestor, Menelaus is able to offer some useful information. He tells Telemachus that he learned from Proteus, the divine Old Man of the Sea, that Odysseus is being held captive on Calypso’s island. This is a crucial moment for Telemachus; he learns that his father is indeed still alive. This discovery reinvigorates Telemachus’s hopes for his father’s return and hardens his resentment for the suitors who are trying to marry Penelope while her husband still lives.
As with Nestor in Book 3, Telemachus’s meeting with Menelaus and Helen allows Homer to explore the concept of xenia, or hospitality. The social code of ancient Greece demanded that a person show kindness to strangers in unfamiliar regions by welcoming them into your home. This social expectation of xenia was so essential that it was believed to be enforced by Zeus, the king of the gods himself. In accordance with the rules of xenia, Menelaus showers Telemachus with riches and hospitality before he even knows who Telemachus is, and he in turn is impressed by his guest’s gratefulness, discretion, and tact. Together, the two act as a model for the ways in which xenia is to be performed, a striking contrast to the indecorous suitors back in Ithaca, and thus provide a background against which violations of xenia yet to come in the text will be portrayed.
