She was a great beauty -- perhaps a rival to Helen in looks. Being such a beauty landed her in trouble more than once because she kept attracting the attention of the wrong males. First there was Apollo, who offered her a marvelous gift, that of prophecy. In this way, Apollo hoped to win her favors. He failed, but when she spurned his advances, she suffered divine anger. Although Apollo did not take back what he had given her -- Cassandra would continue to foresee the future clearly -- no one would believe her.
Hyginus Fabulae [93] XCIII. CASSANDRA
Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, is said to have fallen asleep when she was tired of playing, in the temple of Apollo. When Apollo tried to embrace her, she did not permit him. So Apollo brought it about that she should not be believed, though she gave true prophecies.
Theoi
When the Trojan horse arrived at the city gates, Cassandra was one of two wise Trojans who vainly warned the city that it was a trick. The other was Laocoon, whose horrible fate was more immediate (Cassandra may have lived long enough not only to conceive but also to bear children). Secretly hidden inside the belly of the wooden horse were Greek warriors, armed and ready to take the city. The Trojans did not believe Cassandra and Laocoon, so they celebrated the apparent departure of the Greeks with revelry. When all were asleep, the armed Greek men climbed out from the belly of the wooden beast and destroyed Troy.
Hyginus [108] CVIII. TROJAN HORSE
Since the Achaeans during ten years were not able to take Troy, Epeus at Minerva's suggestion made a wooden horse of remarkable size, and in it were gathered Menelaus, Ulysses, Diomedes, Thessander, Sthenelus, Acamas, Thoas, Machaon, Neoptolemus. On the horse they wrote: "The Danaans give it as a gift to Minerva", and moved camp to Tenedos. When the Trojans saw this, they thought the enemy had gone away; Priam ordered he horse to be brought to the citadel of Minerva, and gave a proclamation that they celebrate magnificently. When the prophetess Cassandra kept insisting that there were enemies within, they did not believe her. They put it in the citadel, and at night when they slept, overcome by sport and wine, the Achaeans came out of the horse which had been opened by Sinon, killed the guards at the gates, and at a given signal admitted their friends. Thus they gained possession of Troy.
Theoi
Troy was set on fire. The leading women were taken away as war prizes. Trojan men were slain. The Greek forces even killed the very young son of Hector and Andromache, Astyanax, the timid little boy who had been frightened recently by the sight of his armed father. As is told in a Latin story of the Trojan War, by Vergil, the second book of his Aeneid, while princess Cassandra clung to what should have been sanctuary at the altar of her goddess, Athena, she was seized by Little Ajax (Ajax the Lesser or the Locrian Ajax), and perhaps raped.
Behold the royal prophetess, the fair
Cassandra, dragg'd by her dishevel'd hair,
Whom not Minerva's shrine, nor sacred bands,
In safety could protect from sacrilegious hands:
On heav'n she cast her eyes, she sigh'd, she cried-
'T was all she could- her tender arms were tied.
Aeneid II
The big, noble Ajax the Great, the son of Telamon, had suffered goddess-induced madness and then committed suicide in his shame. This lesser Ajax paid for his sacrilege, although versions differ on how and whether he was killed by the gods or stoning by his fellows. The next male to gain control over Cassandra was the cursed House of Atreus' King Agamemnon, who took the young beauty, now a slave, from Troy to his Mycenaean Greek home as his concubine. Cassandra warned him of danger, but he paid no attention.
Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, didn't appreciate the lovely, younger rival and had never forgiven her husband for having deliberately killed their daughter, so the pair coming from Troy to their home in Mycenae were killed shortly after they arrived at the palace. The deed was done either by Clytemnestra or her lover Aegisthus, cousin of Agamemnon, or both.
Hyginus [117] CXVII. CLYTEMNESTRA
Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus and wife of Agamemnon, heard from Oeax, brother of Palamedes, that Cassandra was being brought as a concubine to her house, a false statement Oeax made in order to avenge the wrong done to his brother. Then Clytemnestra, together with Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, planned to kill Agamemnon and Cassandra. They killed him with an axe as he was sacrificing, and Cassandra, too.
Theoi
This page was first created in connection with the February 1, 2012 Guess Who.
