before giving his decision, tyndareus bound all the suitors to his fateful oath: should anyone ever take his daughter by force, all those who had wooed her must exact vengeance upon her abductor. to this all the suitors readily agreed, each believing that he would be given helen's hand. at this point the catalogue of suitors has come to a close, but even as menelaus' success is reported, the poet introduces achilles because of his status as the greatest hero of the trojan saga and his central role in zeus's plan to bring the heroic age to a close. with the aid of agamemnon, menelaus had given the most bride prices, but were achilles already of age, he would surely have won helen's hand, "for neither warlike menelaus nor any other human on earth would have defeated him". but achilles was not present, and menelaus won helen, who bore hermione to him.