JOREN:

Friends, classmates and our dear professor! Lend me your ears for I am about
to recount the story of a great war that created many other stories of all time.
We are about to tell the real reason behind the Start of Trojan war.
(BRINGS OUT THE APPLE) What can you see my dear listeners? (answer) Yes,
a small piece of Golden apple indeed. And I am pleased to tell all of you that
this, this piece of fruit gave birth to the great Trojan war.
More than a thousand years before Christ, near the eastern end of the
Mediterranean was a great city very rich and powerful, second to none on
earth. The name of it was Troy and evn today no city is more rich and famous.
The cause of this long-lasting fame was a war told of in one of the worlds
greatest poems, The Iliad by the master of all master Homer, and the cause
of the war went back to a dispute between three jealous goddesses.

KINCE:
The evil goddess of Discord, Eris, was naturally not popular in Olympus and
when the gods gave a banquet they were apt to leave her out. Resenting this
deeply, she is very determined to make trouble, and she succeeded very
well indeed. At an important marriage, that of King Peleus and the sea nymph
Thetis, to which she alone of all the divinities was not invited, she threw into
the banqueting hall a golden apple marked For the Fairest. Of course all
the goddesses wanted it, but in the end the choice was narrowed down to
three: Aphrodite, Hera and Athena.

JANE:
And so the three goddesses asked Zeus to judge them, but very wisely
refused to have anything to do with the matter. He told them to go to Mt. Ida,
near Troy where the young prince Paris, also call Alexander, was keeping his
fathers sheep. He was an excellent judge of beauty, Zeus told them. Paris,
though a royal prince, was keeping shepherds work because his father Priam,
the King of Troy, gad been warned that this prince would one day be the ruin
of his country, and so had sent him away. At the moment Paris was living with
a royal nymph named Oenone.
His amazement can be imagined when there appeared before him the
wondrous forms of the three great goddesses. He was not asked however to
gaze at the radiant divinities and choose which of tem seemed to him best
worth taking.

JOREN:

The choice was not easy.

All three goddesses bribed

Paris. What men care for most was set before him. Hera promised to make
him Lord of Europe and control over Asia; Athena offered him wisdom and
victory in battle and that he would lead the Trojans to victory to victory
against Greeks and lay Greece in ruins; Aphrodite offers the fairest and most
beautiful woman in all the world should be his. Paris, a weakling and
something of a coward, chose the last. He gave Aphrodite the golden apple.
That was my dear listeners the Judgment of Paris, famed everywhere as the

. In either case this

event set into motion the Trojan War for the
next ten years.
real reason why Trojan War was fought.

KATLEEN:
The fairest woman was Helen, the daughter of Zeus and Leda and the sister
of Castor and Pollux. Such was the report of her beauty that not a young
prince in Greece but wanted t marry her, When her suitors assembled in her
home to make formal proposal for her hand they were so many and from
such powerful families that her reputed father, King Tyndareus, her mothers
husband, was afraid to select one among them, fearing that the others would
unite against him. He therefore exacted first a solemn oath from all that they
would champion the cause of Helens husband, whoever he might be, if any
wrong was done to him through his marriage. Tyndareus chose Menelaus, the
brother of Agamemnon, and made him King of Sparta.

ENRIQUE:

So matters stood when Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite. The goddess of
Love and Beauty knew very well where the most beautiful woman on earth
was to be found. She led the young shepherd with a never a thought of
Oenone left forlorn straight to Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen received
him graciously as their guest. The ties between guest and host were strong.
Each was bound to help and never harm the other. But Paris broke that
sacred bond Menelaus trusting completely to it left Paris in his home and
went off the Crete.

KINCE:
Menelaus got back to find Helen gone, and he called upon all Greece to Help
him. The chieftains responded and were eager to cross the sea and lay
mighty Troy in ashes. The great fleet was made ready. And so Helen, is the
face that launch thousand ship.

HE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS was a contest between the three most beautiful goddesses
of Olympos--Aphrodite, Hera and Athena--for the prize of a golden apple addressed to
"the fairest"
The story begins at the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis to which all of the gods were
invited, all except Eris, the goddess of discord. When she appeared at the festivities, she
was turned away, and in her anger cast a golden apple amongst the assembled goddesses
addressed "To the Fairest." Three goddesses laid claim to the apple--Aphrodite, Hera and
Athena. Zeus was asked to mediate and he commanded Hermes to lead the three

goddesses to Paris of Troy to decide the issue. The three goddesses appearing before the
shepherd prince, each offering him gifts for favour. He chose Aphrodite, swayed by her
promise to bestow upon him Helene, the most beautiful woman, for wife. The subsequent
abduction of Helene led directly to the Trojan War and the fall of the city.

The Judgement of Paris

It all started when Eris, the goddess of discord, realized that she had not been invited to
the marriage of the King Peleus with the sea Nymph Thetis- a marriage that took place on
the Mountain of Pelion in Thessaly, in Central Greece.
Eris was so furious about her exclusion that she decided to go to the wedding and throw a
golden apple, the fruit of temptation, to the banquet table. The apple was supposed to go
out to the "Calliste"- the fairest one.
Three goddesses claimed the beautiful golden apple:
Hera, the mature goddess of Marriage
Athena, the sophisticated goddess of Wisdom
Aphrodite, the sensual goddess of Love
Zeus, the King of the gods, had a hard time to decide, since all three
were dear to him, so he left the judgement to the most handsome young man- the Trojan
Prince Paris.
Hera and Athena did their best to bribe Paris with power and glory...
Aphrodite, on the other hand, seduced him with love, offering him the most beautiful
woman in the world: the legendary Helen of Sparta.
Paris opted for Aphrodite and so Helen was taken away from Sparta to become Helen of
Troy.

According to one version in Greek mythology, this was the

inception of the legendary Trojan War, which lasted for ten
years.

The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events
that led up to the Trojan War and (in slightly later versions of the story) to the foundation
of Rome.

Contents
Sources of the episode

Renoir, 1908-1910

As with many mythological tales, details vary depending on the source. The brief allusion
to the Judgement in the Iliad (24.2530) shows that the episode initiating all the
subsequent action was already familiar to its audience; a fuller version was told in the
Cypria, a lost work of the Epic Cycle, of which only fragments (and a reliable
summary[1]) remain. The later writers Ovid (Heroides 16.71ff, 149152 and 5.35f),
Lucian (Dialogues of the Gods 20), The Bibliotheca (Epitome E.3.2) and Hyginus
(Fabulae 92), retell the story with skeptical, ironic or popularizing agendas. It appeared
wordlessly on the ivory and gold votive chest of the 7th-century BC tyrant Cypselus at
Olympia, which was described by Pausanias as showing:
... Hermes bringing to Alexander [i.e. Paris] the son of Priam the
goddesses of whose beauty he is to judge, the inscription on them
being: 'Here is Hermes, who is showing to Alexander, that he may
arbitrate concerning their beauty, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.[2]

The subject was favoured by painters of Red-figure pottery as early as the sixth century
BC,[3] and remained popular in Greek and Roman art, before enjoying a significant
revival, as an opportunity to show three female nudes, in the Renaissance.

Mythic narrative

Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485-1488. This is one of the very few versions in which
all three goddesses are fully clothed.

It is recounted[4] that Zeus held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and
Thetis (parents of Achilles). However, Eris, goddess of discord was not invited, for she
would have made the party unpleasant for everyone. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at
the celebration with a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, which she threw
into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription (kallisti, "for the fairest
one").[5]
Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to
judge which of them was fairest, and eventually he, reluctant to favour any claim himself,
declared that Paris, a Trojan mortal, would judge their cases, for he had recently shown
his exemplary fairness in a contest in which Ares in bull form had bested Paris's own
prize bull, and the shepherd-prince had unhesitatingly awarded the prize to the god.[6]

Joachim Wtewael, c. 1615, with the wedding feast of the gods in the
background

Thus it happened that, with Hermes as their guide, the three candidates bathed in the
spring of Ida, then confronted Paris on Mount Ida in the climactic moment that is the crux
of the tale. While Paris inspected them, each attempted with her powers to bribe him;
Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in
war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with
flowers and song (according to a fragment of the Cypria quoted by Athenagoras of
Athens), offered the world's most beautiful woman (Euripides, Andromache, l.284,
Helena l. 676). This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris
accepted Aphrodite's gift and awarded the apple to her, receiving Helen as well as the
enmity of the Greeks and especially of Hera. The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen
from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War.
The mytheme of the Judgement of Paris naturally offered artists the opportunity to depict
a sort of beauty contest between three beautiful female nudes, but the myth, at least since
Euripides, rather concerns a choice among the gifts that each goddess embodies. The
bribery involved is ironic and a late ingredient.

According to a tradition suggested by Alfred J. Van Windekens,[7] objectively, "cow-eyed"

Hera was indeed the most beautiful, not Aphrodite. However, Hera was the goddess of
the marital order and of cuckolded wives, amongst other things. She was often portrayed
as the shrewish, jealous wife of Zeus, who himself often escaped from her controlling
ways by cheating on her with other women, mortal and immortal. She had fidelity and
chastity in mind and was careful to be modest when Paris was inspecting her. Aphrodite,
though not as objectively beautiful as Hera, was the goddess of sexuality, and was
effortlessly more sexual and charming before him. Thus, she was able to sway Paris into
judging her the fairest. Athena's beauty is rarely commented in the myths, perhaps
because Greeks held her up as an asexual being, being able to "overcome" her "womanly
weaknesses" to become both wise and talented in war (both considered male domains by
the Greeks). Her rage at losing makes her join the Greeks in the battle against Paris'
Trojans, a key event in the turning point of the war.

In post-Classical art

Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael, c. 1515-1516

The subject became popular in art from the late Middle Ages onwards. All three
goddesses were usually shown nude, though in ancient art only Aphrodite is ever
unclothed, and not always.[8] The opportunity for three female nudes was a large part of
the attraction of the subject. It appeared in illuminated manuscripts and was popular in
decorative art, including 15th-century Italian inkstands and other works in maiolica, and
cassoni.[9] As a subject for easel paintings, it was more common in Northern Europe,
although Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of c. 1515, probably based on a drawing by
Raphael, and using a composition derived from a Roman sarcophagus, was a highly
influential treatment, which made Paris's Phrygian cap an attribute in most later versions.
[10]

The subject was painted many (supposedly 22) times by Lucas Cranach the Elder, and
was especially attractive to Northern Mannerist painters. Rubens painted several
compositions of the subject at different points in his career. Watteau and Angelica

Kauffman were among the artists who painted the subject in the 18th century. The
Judgement of Paris was painted frequently by academic artists of the 19th century, and
less often by their more progressive contemporaries such as Renoir and Czanne. Later
artists who have painted the subject include Andr Lhote, Enrique Simonet (El Juicio de
Paris 1904) and Salvador Dal.
Ivo Saliger (1939), Adolf Ziegler (1939) and Joseph Thorak (1941) also used the classic
myth to propagate German renewal during the nazi regime.

Judgment of Paris

The wedding of Peleus and Thetis, a sea goddess, was a

large event. The wedding was very popular, and most of the
important gods and mortals were invited. One goddess who
was not invited was Eris, the goddess of discord. She threw
a golden apple into the crowd with the words The Fairest
inscribed on it. Three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and
Aphrodite all claimed the apple should be for them. To
resolve the disagreement Zeus appointed Paris, a Trojan
prince, to judge the
contest.
All three goddesses
bribed Paris. Hera offered
Paris control over Asia.
Athena offered him
wisdom and victory in
battle. Aphrodite offered
him the most beautiful
woman in the world.

Paris picked Aphrodite for the title The Fairest. In return

Aphrodite helped Paris kidnap Helen, wife of the King
Menelaus of Sparta. Stories conflict as to weather if Helen
fell in love with Paris (with the help of Aphrodite) and left
willingly, or if she was forcefully abducted by Paris. In
either case this event set into motion the Trojan War for the
next ten years.

Judgment of Paris
Kidipede home > Ancient Greece > Greek Myth > Judgment of Paris

Once upon a time, around 1250 BC, toward the end of the Bronze Age in Greece, three
goddesses were having an argument (said the Greeks). The goddesses Aphrodite, Athena,
and Hera were arguing about which one of them was the most beautiful. They agreed to
choose a human man and let him decide. More or less at random, the goddesses picked
Paris, the youngest son of King Priam of Troy, to be their judge.

Judgment of Paris -Paris is on the right

Each of the goddesses offered Paris a bribe to get him to vote for her. Athena offered him
wisdom. Hera offered him power. But Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman
in the world, and Paris voted for her.
So Aphrodite had to come through on her promise. She sent Paris to go visit the Greek
king of Sparta, Menelaus (men-uh-LAY-us). Menelaus was married to Helen, who was

the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus and Helen welcomed Paris kindly, and
gave him dinner and let him stay the night in their house. But during the night Paris
convinced Helen to run away with him (because Aphrodite made her agree). He took her
back to Troy with him and married her, even though she was already married to
Menelaus.

The Judgment of Paris

The ancient Greeks believed that, when you are born, the thread of your life is
already interwoven with the threads of other lives. Thus, your destiny is
preordained. In the tapestry woven by the Fates, Helens thread crossed with
many others. One of these fateful threads belonged to a Trojan prince called
Paris. According to prophecy, Paris was destined to cause trouble. He was
destined to be the third in a love triangle that involved him, Menelaus, and Helen.
Paris was the youngest son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. While
pregnant with Paris, Queen Hecuba dreamt that she gave birth to a flame that
would destroy the city of Troy. To avoid fulfillment of this prophecy, baby Paris
was left on Mt. Ida to die. However, he was saved by a compassionate shepherd
who was unaware of the prophecy associated with the babys birth. By rescuing
baby Paris, the shepherd unwittingly set in motion a series of events that would
lead to the destruction of Troy. Such was the immutable power of fate in ancient
Greek mythology.
Paris grew up unaware of his noble birth. In his late teens, he learned who his
real parents were and went to Troy, where he was accepted into the house of his
father, King Priam. However, prior to returning to his birth family, Paris had a
fateful encounter with three beautiful goddesses. He was tending his sheep one
day on Mt. Ida, when he was chosen to judge a beauty contest between the three
goddesses (image), Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. The three goddesses were in
a bitter quarrel and Paris was drawn into this feline conflict as the unwitting pawn
of the gods, which included Helens father, Zeus.
The origin of this divine beauty contest traced back to the wedding of Peleus and
Thetis. Eris, the goddess of discord, was furious because she was not invited to
the wedding. True to her nature, Eris made trouble. She threw a golden apple
into the wedding feast. Inscribed on the apple were the words To the fairest.
Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite fought for the apple. Each believed she best fit the
inscription on the apple. Eventually the three vain goddesses asked Zeus to
decide which of them was the fairest. Zeus was reluctant to choose. So, he

proposed that Paris be the judge. Thus, Paris was drafted to decide which
goddess was the fairest of them all.

Peter Paul Rubens The Judgment of Paris (1639) in the Prado

Back on Mt. Ida, each of the goddesses sought to bolster her chance of winning.
Each tried to bribe Paris with a different promise in order to win his vote. Hera
promised power and control of a great kingdom. Athena offered wisdom and
battle prowess. However, Aphrodite won the apple. She promised Paris the most
beautiful woman in the world: Helen.