Helen’s mother was a Greek and Zeus seems to be Greek in myths where he takes on human forms, so it makes a lot of sense for Helen to be portrayed as Greek
You could read it; it's really not that dense or anything.
Anyway, Odysseus and crew do swing by north Africa to "restock" (rape and pillage, the text is quite clear) on their way back from Troy. I do not recall anything there to say they looked different than anyone else.
What we have as most current versions of the Iliad and Odyssey was not written down it was passed down for hundreds of years which Ancient Greek versions of a bard would sing from memory and almost always add in improvisations. Whatever claim that anything in the poem refers to ethnicities may have been added centuries after the Poems creation and that is not even accounting for what is lost translation. The poem itself is also not that descriptive, at least when it comes to people specific physical features. It spends more on detailing their armors than it does telling you what Achilles looked like, other than making a point to say that Ajax Telamon was basically a giant, and Ajax the lesser was not( a lot, poor little Ajax) their identifying features are not that prominent.
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u/OscarMMG 13d ago
Helen’s mother was a Greek and Zeus seems to be Greek in myths where he takes on human forms, so it makes a lot of sense for Helen to be portrayed as Greek