ABOUT

Cassandra is a tragic figure in Greek mythology - a prophetess who was able to see the future but never to be believed. However, in contemporary times literary scholars tend to agree that she is a modern day archetypal figure for a beautiful and intelligent woman. Needless to say, she, like many other women from the Trojan War myths, such as Andromache and Hecuba, are normally assosciated with the civilian suffering of that war.

She is always noted for her beauty but depicted as a "madwoman" in ancient Greek sources. Euripides referred to her as "the frenzied maid" in his play, "The Trojan Woman". She was also a priestess of Apollo. She recognized her brother Paris when he returned to Troy, prophesized the doom of Troy and the Trojan horse and was the first to recognize Hector's corpse when it was brought back to the City. She also prophesized the death of Agammemnon and subsequently her own demise. Cassandra is also assosciated with powerlessness since she was able to predict these events clearly but doomed to surrender to such tragedy because she could not change her fate.

The name Cassandra means "she who entangles men". Regarded as the most beautiful of King Priam's daughters (and later on as the most beautiful in Troy, second to Helen), Cassandra was cursed by the God Apollo after he seduced her by offering her the gift of prophecy if she would sleep with him. She spurned him at the last minute and he cursed her so that no one would ever believe her prophecies. An alternative to this story is that Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus were left overnight in a temple of Apollo when they were infants. When they were found in the morning, they were caught with serpents licking their ears. This is a metaphor for attaining the gift of prophecy in Greek mythology.

During the Trojan war, there were several suitors who came to the aid of Troy out of love for Cassandra. The two most notable were Coroebus and Othronus. During the sack of Troy, Cassandra was dragged from a refuge in the temple of Athene where she was clinging to a statue of the Goddess and raped by the lesser Ajax. Athene was so enraged by this act that she later killed Ajax in a fit of fury. After the war, she was taken as a war prize by Agammemnon who was so enthralled by her beauty that he intended to make her his lawful wife. However, he first conspired to put aside his wife Clytemenstra. Forced to be his consort, Cassandra bore him twins during their voyage to Agammemnon's home in Mycenae. Upon their arrival, she was killed by Clytemenstra while Agammemnon and her twins were killed by Clytemenstra's lover, Aegisthus. When the German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, excavated an ancient city he believed to be Troy, he unearthed the corpse of a woman who was buried with twins. Schliemann believed that this woman was Cassandra.