Helen of Troy is remembered by posterity for her beauty and for causing strife amongst men – hers was the face that launched a thousand ships. But Helen was a figure of ancient Greek myth. Mariamne, the queen of Judaea, was equally known as a beauty and as both a cause and victim of conflict, but unlike Helen she was very real; her story too, though, ‘in the course of time … became a legend’, with Boccaccio, Voltaire, and Byron, amongst others, retelling it in much later times.1