Daß nicht die echte Helena mit Paris Alexander nach Troja gefahren sei, sondern nur ein Eidolon von ihr, geht auf den Dichter Stesichoros (6. Jhdt. v.u.Z.) zurück, von dem berichtet wird, er sei nach einem Spottgedicht auf Helena erblindet und erst wieder genesen, nachdem er in seinen „Palinoden“ Helena durch seine neue Version von Schuld entlastet hatte; so berichten es Platon (Phaidros), Isokrates (Helena) und Pausanias.
Für den Inhalt der „Palinoden“ gibt es die folgenden Quellen:

1.
[...] wie auch um das Schattenbild [εἴδωλον] der Helena nach Stesichoros unter den Trojanern solcher Streit entstand aus Unkenntnis des Wahren.

[Platon: Der Staat 586c]


2.
Just as according to some poets Alexander seized Helen’s phantom [εἴδωλον] but could not take Helen herself.

[Aelius Aristides: Rede 1 (Panathenäische Rede) 128]

Scholiast:
Stesichorus in his poetry tells that when Alexander had seized Helen and was making his way through Pharos he was robbed of her by Proteus and received from him her portrait painted on a panel, so that he could assuage his passion by looking at it.


3.
[...] just like Stesichorus‘ Trojans, holding onto the shadow image [εἴδωλον] of Helen as if it were the woman herself.

[Aelius Aristides: Rede 2 (Eine Antwort auf Platon) 234]


4.
“And so ludicrous an effect have these men had upon you,” he continued, “that you say of another poet – Stesichorus, I believe it is – who followed Homer’s account and repeated these same stories about Helen, that he was struck blind by her as a liar and recovered his sight upon recanting. And though you tell this tale, you none the less believe that Homer’s account is true. You say, too, that Stesichorus in his palinode declared that Helen never sailed off to any place whatsoever, while certain others say that Helen was carried off by Paris but came to us here in Egypt. Yet with all this uncertainty and ignorance surrounding the matter you cannot even thus see through the deception.”

[Dion Chrysostomos: Rede 11, 40 f.]


5.
[...] (in one Palinode) he blames Homer because he put Helen in Troy, not her phantom [εἴδωλον]; and in the other he blames Hesiod: for there are two different Palinodes, and beginning of one is

δεῦρ’ αὖτε θεὰ φιλόμολπε
Hither again, goddess, lover of song and dance

and of the other

χρυσόπτερε παρθένε
Golden-winged maiden

as Chamaeleon [Χαμαιλέων] (1) wrote. Stesichorus himself says that the phantom [ε(ἴδωλο)ν] went to Troy while Helen remained with Proteus.

[Kommentar auf Papyrus zu lyrischen Dichtern aus dem 2. Jhdt. u.Z.]

(1) peripatetischer Philosoph und Grammatiker des späten 4. Jhdts. v.u.Z.