I was reading a review for the Helen of Troy mini-series (was really as bad as it sounded? *shudder*), since I won’t get it here in Germania for a year or so and then badly translated and dubbed. The reviewer tossed out the factoid that Helen was the mother of Iphigenia (by Theseus) and dumped her on Clytemnestra to avoid scandal.

(S)He passed this off as though everyone knew this, but it was new to me so I did a little checking. It certainly isn’t a Homeric tradition (which means that maia won’t accept it). The only source that I could find was Pausanias (who mentions his sources). It doesn’t seem to have been a commonly held belief (but then the whole rape of Helen by Theseus is rarely mentioned), but I thought it an odd thing to find in a review.