Cassandra
Cassandra, the Greek: Κασσάνδρα (I like the way Greek letters look.)
Narrating myth is not one of my strengths. In fact, my writing about such stuff was once brushed off as “shallow” by one of my professors. Oh well, I’m still going to talk about Cassandra.
I’ve been meaning to talk about her for a while because her story always sort of bothered me. It’s almost too tragic, if that’s possible for a character at the center of several Greek Tragic Stories. There’s the fact that she was blessed in the art of prophecy, wise in a certain way, yet no one paid her any heed. Sounds familiar for a woman (ha).
She was the loveliest of the daughters of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. So lovely, infact, that she attracted the attention of Apollo. He fell in love with her, taught her the art of prophecy. But in the end, she rejected his love.
In Agamemnon, Aeschylus puts it like this:
Cassandra: . . . he [Apollo] wrestled with me, and he breathed his delight.
Chorus: Did you come to the getting of children, then, as people do?
Cassandra: I promised that to Loxias (Apollo), but I broke my word.
She “broke her word” to Apollo, and was promptly punished. He allowed her keep her gift of vision, prophecy, but he took away the privilege that came along with such a gift and made it so that no one would ever believe her. Rendering her blessing a curse. What good does it do a body to be able to see the future and be helpless to do anything about it?
She foresaw the destruction of Troy.
When Paris sailed to Sparta, she warned her father, King Priam, that the outcome of this visit would lead to the destruction of his city. Yet, Paris was allowed to sail to Sparta. I think we all know what happened next, but I’ll go there anyway, briefly: He abducted Helen, brought her to Troy, and started the Trojan War.
She also knew about the Wooden Horse.
She pleaded with the Trojans to keep it outside of the city-gates, yet it was wheeled into the city, pregnant as it was, with armed Greek soldiers.
They really should have listened to her.
Things just get worse for her. As the city was being ravaged, pillaged, and burned by the marauding Greeks Soldiers, she clung to the altar of Athena for protection. This was sacred space. One must not abuse a person who was seeking refuge at the altar of a God. Yet, one did. He was Ajax, the Locrian. Not that other Ajax, the one who was the strongest, biggest. The one who went crazy after being denied the armor of Achilles. No, this was a smaller fool. He tore Cassandra from the alter and raped her, and she was subsequently passed off to his chief, Agamemnon, as a war prize.
Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae. He was also the brother of Helen’s husband, Menelaus. After the destruction of Troy was complete, he returned home to Mycenae with Cassadra as his concubine. Which was silly of him. Not that this [having a concubine] was unprecedented, but because he had a wife who had been raging at him for roughly ten years for the following reason.
When the first Greek fleet started on its journey to Troy, it was held up by lack of winds. It was Artemis. She was adamant that a sacrifice be made by Agamemnon to atone for the bloodshed that would arise from the war. It was a very specific sacrifice. It was his daughter, Iphigenia. I think her sacrifice deserves its own post, so I will spare the details here, but it was through her death that the Greeks were granted wind to sail off to Troy. It’s enough, I think, to say that his wife, Clytaemnestra, was bitter about this.
So bitter that while he was away in Troy (for 10 years), she shacked up with his cousin, a fellow named Aigisthos. Aigisthhos had his own reasons for hating Agememnon, but I won’t go into that here. It was their agreement that Agamemnon was dead meat should he return to Mycenae.
It so happens that returning to Mycenae with Cassandra in tow meant that she was dead meat as well.
She foresaw that, too.


