Cassandra | Greek Princess

Cassandra (Greek: Κασσάνδρα) is a character in Greek mythology, one of the nineteen children of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, and therefore the sister of Hector, Paris, Polixena and other children of the royal couple.

She is a prominent character in the Trojan War for predicting it and warning her family and the people about her predictions of destruction, being however, discredited and considered insane, due to a disagreement with the god Apollo, who cursed her. Consequently, Troy is defeated and destroyed by the Greeks.

Cassandra is described by Ibic as "green-eyed."

Story

Greek mythology tells how Cassandra and her twin brother, Helenus, as children, went to the Temple of Apollo to play. The twins played until it was too late to return home, so a bed was arranged for them inside the temple.

The next morning, the nanny found the children still asleep, while two serpents were running their tongues over their ears. The nanny was terrified but the children were unharmed. As a result of the incident the twins' ears became so sensitive that they could hear the voices of the gods.

Cassandra became a young woman of magnificent beauty, a devoted servant of Apollo. She was so devoted that the god himself fell in love with her and taught her the secrets of prophecy. Cassandra became a prophetess, but when she refused to sleep with Apollo, he, out of revenge, put a curse on her that no one would ever come to believe in her prophecies or predictions.

Cassandra comes to be regarded as mad as she tries to communicate her numerous predictions of disaster and doom to the Trojan population.

The lack of credibility in Cassandra's predictions and prophecies led to the fall and consequent destruction of Troy, when she was frustrated in her repeated attempts to beg Priam to destroy the wooden horse (Trojan Horse) designed by Ulysses to conquer Troy from within.

With the city already taken by the Greeks, Cassandra takes refuge in the temple of Athena, where she is discovered and raped by the brutal Ajax, son of Ileu (the goddess would later take revenge on the warrior).

In the sharing of the spoils of war, she is given to Agamemnon, who takes her on his ship, on the voyage back to Mycenae, where he would be murdered by Aegistus, lover of Queen Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife.

After that, Cassandra went to Colchis, from where she left with Zakynthius, to have a new city founded, as he claimed to have received a message from the gods for him to found, with some woman who could also be a priestess, as Cassandra had been.

According to the plaque number 183, in the Archaeology Museum in Athens, it seems that Cassandra was not killed in Troy or Mycenae, as many believe, but actually helped in the founding of the new city, giving offspring thirty generations later to Agathon, the author of the plaque with the written request to the gods.