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[4] But Hera sent them a heavy storm which forced them to put in at Sidon. And fearing lest he should be pursued, Alexander spent much time in Phoenicia and Cyprus.1 But when he thought that all chance of pursuit was over, he came to Troy with Helen.


1 The voyage of Paris and Helen to Sidon was known to Hom. Il. 6.289ff., with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 6.291. It was also recorded in the epic Cypria, according to Proclus, who says that Paris captured the city (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 18). Yet according to Hdt. 2.117, the author of the Cypria described how Paris and Helen sailed in three days from Sparta to Ilium with a fair wind and a smooth sea. It seems therefore that Herodotus and Proclus had different texts of the Cypria before them. Dictys Cretensis tells how, driven by the winds to Cyprus, Paris sailed with some ships to Sidon, where he was hospitably entertained by the king, but basely requited his hospitality by treacherously murdering his host and plundering the palace. In embarking with his booty on his ships, he was attacked by the Sidonians, but, after a bloody fight and the loss of two ships, he succeeded in beating off his assailants and putting to sea with the rest of his vessels. See Dictys Cretensis i.5.

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