This the priests said was the manner of Helen’s coming to Proteus; and I suppose that Homer also had heard this story, but since it was not so suitable to the composition of his poem as the other which he followed, he dismissed it finally, making it clear at the same time that he was acquainted with that story also:  and according to the manner in which he described the wanderings of Alexander in the Iliad (nor did he elsewhere retract that which he had said) of his course, wandering to various lands, and that he came among other places to Sidon in Phenicia.  Of this the poet has made mention in the “prowess of Diomede,” and the verses run thus: 

     “There she had robes many-coloured, the works of women of Sidon,
     Those whom her son himself the god-like of form Alexander
     Carried from Sidon, what time the broad sea-path he sailed over
     Bringing back Helene home, of a noble father begotten.”

And in the Odyssey also he has made mention of it in these verses: 

     “Such had the daughter of Zeus, such drugs of exquisite cunning,
     Good, which to her the wife of Thon, Polydamna, had given,
     Dwelling in Egypt, the land where the bountiful meadow produces
     Drugs more than all lands else, many good being mixed, many evil.”

And thus too Menelaos says to Telemachos: 

     “Still the gods stayed me in Egypt, to come back hither desiring,
     Stayed me from voyaging home, since sacrifice due I performed not.”

In these lines he makes it clear that he knew of the wanderings of Alexander to Egypt, for Syria borders upon Egypt and the Phenicians, of whom is Sidon, dwell in Syria.  By these lines and by this passage it is also most clearly shown that the “Cyprian Epic” was not written by Homer but by some other man:  for in this it is said that on the third day after leaving Sparta Alexander came to Ilion bringing with him Helen, having had a “gently-blowing wind and a smooth sea,” whereas in the Iliad it says that he wandered from his course when he brought her.

Let us now leave Homer and the “Cyprian Epic”; but this I will say, namely that I asked the priests whether it is but an idle tale which the Hellenes tell of that which they say happened about Ilion; and they answered me thus, saying that they had their knowledge by inquiries from Menelaos himself.  After the rape of Helen there came indeed, they said, to the Teucrian land a large army of Hellenes to help Menelaos; and when the army had come out of the ships to land and had pitched its camp there, they sent messengers to Ilion, with whom went also Menelaos himself; and when these entered within the wall they demanded back Helen and the wealth which Alexander had stolen from Menelaos and had taken away; and moreover they demanded satisfaction for the wrongs done:  and the Teucrians told the same tale then and afterwards, both with oath and without oath, namely that in deed