Narrative
Select events leading up to the Trojan War, drawn from Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Medieval sources.
Zeus perceived overpopulation to be the greatest problem of the Heroic Age. Gaia groaned under the burden of too many mortals, and the demi-gods among them thought too highly of themselves to properly respect the gods.
Zeus initially planned to depopulate the world through a rain of thunderbolts and flooding, but was tempered by the counsel of Themis. She proposed two momentous events: first, the marriage of Thetis to a mortal, creating a prodigious warrior as their offspring; and second, the birth of a woman who could be universally regarded as the most desirable in all mortal history.
With appropriate incitement, these two mortals could unite all of Hellas in a war against all of Phrygia, decimating the heroic populations of both factions. The result would be the Theban Wars to serve as a proving ground for the Achaeans, a Trojan War in Western Anatolia, and a collapse of civilizations to draw the Fourth Age of Humanity to a close.
Hera then insinuated her own agenda into Zeus's plan. When Heracles had ascended to godhood, he had taken Hebe as his Olympian bride. Hebe's duties as Cupbearer to the Gods had then been given to Ganymede, a Trojan youth who had captured Zeus's affection. Because of her jealously toward Ganymede, Hera insisted that the upcoming war should end in the destruction of Troy, as punishment for that city's most honored son.
Starting with these broad strokes, the affair of Paris and Hellen fell on Aphrodite to arrange. The Cyprian love goddess was, however, already playing out her own long game to insinuate her offspring into the line of Anchises. Although she would pretend to take the side of Troy, the destruction of Ilion, and the line of Priam with it, would serve Aphrodite's agenda in the end.
The events of the Trojan War were first foreseen among mortals by Herophile, the Sybil of Erythrai. Soon, rumor spread of an upcoming conflict that would be immortalized in song, although Herophile also predicted that Homer would get a lot of the details wrong.
Herophile even inserted herself into the Epic Cycle by traveling to Ilion in order to deliver her prophecies directly to the royal family of Troy.
Herophile arrived to find a Troy ruled by King Priam and Queen Hecuba with Prince Aesacus as the kingdom's heir.
King Priam, son of Laomedon, had watched his many brothers die at the hands of Heracles during a previous war of Achaeans against Ilion. Priam had been the only male survivor in the Ilian branch of the House of Dardanus.
Queen Hecuba, already a mother to a growing bevy of princes and princesses by Priam, was at that time pregnant with yet another child.
But Crown Prince Aesacus had been born to Priam's first wife, Arisbe, the former queen from whom Priam had divorced in favor of Hecuba. Aesacus was himself a seer of no small talent, having inherited his maternal grandfather's gift of prophecy.
Aesacus had foreseen his own potential to become a great warrior and king, until Herophile delivered a new plan of the gods, in which Aesacus was instead destined to hurl himself off a cliff, lovelorn from an affair gone wrong. On the way down, Aesacus would be transformed by a sympathetic goddess into a cliff-diving bird, and the duties of defending Troy would fall onto the shoulders of Priam's next eldest son, Hector.
Hecuba confided in Herophile that she'd dreamed of giving birth to a winged firebrand. From this, the seer told Hecuba that the child she carried would cause the destruction of Ilion.
The king instead favored the prophetic advice of Aesacus, whose visions confirmed that a child of Priam's, born on a specific date, would cause the destruction of Troy. While Hecuba's pregnancy could produce such a destroyer, Priam had also impregnated Hecuba's sister Cilla, and so he nervously watched both women as the appointed day approached.
Priam reasoned that the child of his affair would be the more likely to cause his downfall by revealing the king's moral failings and alienating his allies. On the fated day, Priam heard that Cilla had given birth to a boy named Munippus, and ordered both of them to be killed. Only after the sentence was carried out did he hear that Hecuba had also given birth.
A new prophecy from Herophile confirmed that it was newborn Paris who was destined to cause Ilion's destruction in his 30th year.
Priam should have learned, through the needless killing of Munippus, that the will of the gods would not be easily turned aside. Still, Priam had a duty to protect his kingdom, and so he ordered a servant to take Paris's life, and to provide the infant's tongue as proof. Although a tongue was delivered, the baby was later discovered, whole and healthy, in the servant's quarters alongside an oddly tongueless dog.
It seemed that a child of prophecy could not be directly killed, but the king and queen agreed that the boy could not stay in the city that he would eventually doom, to be raised by heartbroken parents who knew too much of his fate.
One available option would be for them to leave the infant on the wilderness slopes of Mount Ida, pitting the forces of Fate and Nature against each other in the hope that Ilion might yet be spared. Another option would be to send him away to a set of known foster parents, to ensure that he would not receive the battle training that would make him a military threat.
But whether he was discovered by shepherds in the wilderness or deliberately given into their care, Paris was raised by foster parents who trained him to tend their flocks on the mountainside.
Paris' Prologue 25. Paris' Judgement of The Bulls (Rawlinson Excidium Troiae, Compendium Historiae Troianae-Romanae, Der Trojanische Krieg, etc)
Paris' Prologue 26. Alternative Version: Alexander Receives His Name Paris after The Judgement of Bulls (Sumas de Historia Troyana, Seege or Batayle of Troy, General Estoria)
Paris' Prologue 27. Alternative Version: Priam Asks Paris to Return Home After Judgement of Bulls (Seege or Batayle of Troy)
Paris' Prologue 28. Paris' Marriage with Oenone (Nicander of Colophon and Hegesianax of Alexandria, Apollodorus Library, Ovid Heroides, etc)
Paris' Prologue 29. Alternative Version: Paris' First Wife was Actually Arisbe (Ephorus, Abas)
Paris' Prologue 30. The Birth of Corythus, Son of Paris and Oenone (Hellanicus of Lesbos and Hegesianax of Alexandria, Lycophron, Conon)
Paris' Prologue 31. The Origin of Cassandra and Helenus' Powers (Anticlides of Athens, Tzetzes on Lycophron, Scholiast on Iliad, etc)
Paris' Prologue 32. Apollo Curses Cassandra (Aeschylus Agamemnon, Lycophron, Apollodorus Library, etc)
Paris' Prologue 33: JOP: Eris is Being a Fussy Brat at The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Colluthus)
Paris' Prologue 34: JOP: Eris Throws The Golden Apple. (Cypria, Etruscan Pontic Black-Figure Neck Amphora by The Paris Painter, Attic Red-Figure Calyx Krater by The Kadmos Painter, etc)
Paris' Prologue 35: JOP: The Nereids Gossip about The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Lucian Dialogues of The Sea Gods)
Paris' Prologue 36: JOP: Zeus Instructs Hermes to Take The Goddesses to Mount Ida. (Cypria, Apollodorus Library, Lucian Dialogue of The Sea God)
Paris' Prologue 37: JOP: Hermes Collects The Goddesses (Lucanian Red-Figure Panathenaic Amphora by the Choephoroi Painter, Etruscan bronze mirror, Byzantine Calyx Relief)
Paris' Prologue 38: JOP: The Goddesses Travel From Mount Pelion to Mount Ida by Chariot or walking (Ionian Amyclae Throne by Bathycles, Fragment of North Ionian (Clazomenian?) black-figure hydria probably by the Urla Group, Sophocles Poimenes Fragment)
Paris' Prologue 39: JOP: The Conversation on the Way to Mount Ida (Lucian The Judgement of The Goddesses)
Paris' Prologue 40: JOP: The Goddesses Stop to Take a Bath (Euripides Andromache)
Alternative Version: Paris' First Wife is Arisbe (Ephoros, Abas)
Paris Marries Oenone (Nicander of Colophon and Hegesianax of Alexandria, Apollodorus Library, Ovid Heroides, etc)
Paris Has a Son Corythus (Hellanicus of Lesbos and Hegesianax of Alexandria, Conon Narrations)
The Apple of Discord at The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Cypria, Etruscan Pontic Black-Figure Neck Amphora by the Paris Painter, Lucian Dialogue of The Sea Gods, etc)
The Nereids Gossip about The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Lucian Dialogue of The Sea Gods)
The Judgement of Paris (Iliad, Melian Proto-Geometric Neck-Amphora, Proto-Corinthian Olpe by the Chigi Painter, etc)
Paris' Adventure After The Judgement of Paris (Göttweiger Trojanerkrieg)
The Origin of Cassandra and Helenus' Powers (Anticlides of Athens, Tzetzes on Lycophron, Scholiast on Iliad, etc)
Apollo Curses Cassandra (Aeschylus Agamemnon, Lycophron Alexandra, Apollodorus Library, etc)
Paris Discovers His Family (Sophocles Alexander, Euripides Alexander, Etruscan Alabaster Urn Relief, etc)
Cassandra Prophesies Doom for Troy After Meeting Paris (Euripides Alexander, Ennius Alexander, Etruscan Travertine Urn Relief, etc)
Hector Marries Andromache (Iliad, Sappho, Apollodorus)
Backtrack to Hesione's Backstory: Hercules Takes Hesione (Sophocles Ajax, Zenodotus Epitomes: Historical Commentaries, Lycophron Alexandra, etc)
Antenor Tries to Retrieve Hesione (Dares Phrygius, Togail Troi, Roman de Troi, etc)
The Fate of Hesione (Istros the Callimachean)
Priam Prepares Letters For All of Greece to Receive Paris (Dictys Cretensis as cited in John Malalas Chronicle, John Malalas Chronicle, John Tzetzes Antehomerica)
Paris Kills His Lover Antheus (Lycophron Alexandra, Tzetzes on Lycophron)
Paris is Sent to Greece to Prepare Sacrifices (Dictys Cretensis as cited in John of Antioch, Dictys Cretensis as cited in John Malalas Chronicle)
Alternative Version: Paris Intentionally Sets out to get Helen (Nikias of Mallos)
The Preparations for Paris' Ships (Iliad, Cypria, Pherecydes of Athens, etc)
There is an Oracle that Trojans must avoid Sea Voyages (Hellanicus of Lesbos)
Cassandra Prophesies Doom Before Paris Leaves For Greece (Cypria, Ovid Heroides)
Oenone Tries To Stop Paris From Leaving Troy (Nicander of Colophon and Hegesianax of Alexandria, Apollodorus Library, Ovid Heroides)
Cassandra Prophesies Doom After Paris Leaves For Greece (Lycophron Alexandra)
The Metamorphoses of Aesacus (Apollodorus Library, Ovid Metamorphoses)
Paris' Seatrip to Greece (Lycophron Alexandra, Ovid Heroides)
Paris Meets Menelaus at The Delphic Oracle (Lycophron Alexandra, Tzetzes on Lycophron, Scholia on Iliad)
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