Cassandra

Who Was Cassandra?

Cassandra, also called Alexandra, was a princess of Troy, the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, and the most famous prophetess of Greek myth. Apollo gave her the gift of foresight, but when she refused him he made sure that no one would believe her. She foretold the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, and she was killed at Mycenae beside him (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5; Aeschylus, Agamemnon).

Family and Background

Cassandra was a daughter of Priam and Hecuba, and a sister of Hector, Paris, Helenus, Polyxena and Troilus (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5). Homer calls her the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters and compares her to golden Aphrodite (Iliad 13.365–366, 24.699). In Homer she is not yet a prophetess: the Iliad shows her only as a suitor’s prize and, in its last book, as the first person to see Priam bringing Hector’s body home, when she climbs Pergamus and calls the city out to look (Iliad 24.699–706).

Why Did No One Believe Cassandra?

Her prophecies were always true, but Apollo’s curse meant that no one was ever persuaded by them. In Aeschylus she says that she agreed to Apollo’s wishes and then deceived him, and that afterwards she “persuaded no one of anything” (Agamemnon 1202–1212). The disbelief is the punishment, not a flaw in the gift, and it held for Trojans and Greeks alike.

Why Was Cassandra Also Called Alexandra?

Alexandra is another name for the same woman. Pausanias reports that at Amyclae, near Sparta, the people honoured a sanctuary and image of Alexandra and said that she was Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, and at Leuctra in Laconia he saw a temple and statue of Cassandra whom the locals called Alexandra (Pausanias 3.19.6, 3.26.5).

Was Cassandra a Priestess of Apollo?

The surviving sources tie her closely to Apollo and his shrine. Hyginus says she fell asleep from play in Apollo’s shrine when the god tried to take her (Fabulae 93). In Aeschylus she arrives at Mycenae wearing the sceptre and the fillets of a seer around her neck, which she tears off when she realises that Apollo has led her to her death (Agamemnon 1264–1276). In these sources she is Apollo’s prophetess; they do not describe a formal priesthood.

The Gift and the Curse

Apollo’s Gift of Prophecy

In Apollodorus, Apollo wished to win Cassandra and promised to teach her the art of prophecy. She learned the art but then refused him, and so Apollo took away the power of her prophecy to persuade anyone (Library 3.12.5). Aeschylus gives the same outline from Cassandra’s own mouth: Apollo was a lover who wrestled with her for his favour, she consented to him and then cheated him, and her punishment was to be disbelieved (Agamemnon 1202–1212).

A Second Version of the Story

Hyginus tells it more briefly: when Apollo wished to lie with the sleeping girl she refused him, and so he made it that her true prophecies would find no credit (Fabulae 93). The various accounts therefore agree on the curse, and differ only in how far Cassandra had gone along with Apollo before she refused.

The Shape of the Curse

The curse did not take away her sight or her voice. Cassandra kept her gift to the end and kept speaking, and what she said was simply never acted on. Virgil’s Aeneas remembers that on the night of the horse “Cassandra opened her lips to tell of the doom to come”, but by the god’s command the Trojans never believed her (Aeneid 2.246–247).

The Unheeded Warnings

The Wooden Horse

When the Greeks left the great wooden horse on the shore and sailed away, Cassandra said that an armed force was inside it. In Apollodorus’ Epitome she is supported by the seer Laocoon, but the Trojans, after debating whether to burn it, throw it down a precipice or dedicate it to the gods, chose to spare it as an offering (Epitome 5.17). In Virgil’s version the Trojans, blind with frenzy, set the horse in the citadel (Aeneid 2.244–247), and in Quintus’ Fall of Troy she alone keeps a clear head while the others feast (Fall of Troy 12).

Warnings and Suitors

Her prophecy shaped the lives of the people around her. When the young herdsman Paris won the games at Troy and Deiphobus drew his sword on him, Cassandra prophesied that he was their brother, and Priam recognised him and took him into the palace (Hyginus, Fabulae 91). The Phrygian Coroebus came to Troy to win Cassandra as his bride and died in the war (Pausanias 10.27.1; Virgil, Aeneid 2.341–346). Before him, in the Iliad, Othryoneus of Cabesus, a newcomer to Troy, asks for her without bridal gifts, promising instead to drive the Achaeans from Troy, and is killed by Idomeneus (Iliad 13.363–369).

The Fall of Troy

Cassandra at the Shrine of Athena

In the sack of the city, Cassandra took refuge in the shrine of Athena. Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, the Locrian, saw her clinging to the wooden image of the goddess and dragged her away, violating her; for this, Apollodorus says, the image of Athena looks up to heaven (Epitome 5.22). Virgil describes the same scene: Cassandra is dragged from the temple and the shrine of Minerva by her unbound hair, lifting her burning eyes to heaven, because chains held her hands (Aeneid 2.403–406). Polygnotus’ painting at Delphi, described by Pausanias, shows her sitting on the ground holding the image of Athena, which she had knocked from its stand as Ajax dragged her away, while Ajax swears an oath about the outrage (Pausanias 10.26.3).

Given to Agamemnon as a Prize

When the Greeks divided the captive women, Agamemnon took Cassandra as his special prize, Neoptolemus received Andromache and Odysseus received Hecuba (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.23). Before the fleet sailed, Calchas declared that Athena was angry over the impiety of Ajax, and the Greeks would have killed him had he not fled to an altar (Epitome 5.23); Pausanias says that it was Odysseus who urged the Greeks to stone Ajax for the outrage on Cassandra (Pausanias 10.31.2). In Euripides, Cassandra, in a frenzy, takes up a torch, sings a wedding hymn for her forced marriage, and declares that she will be Agamemnon’s destruction and will ruin his house (Trojan Women 298–364).

The Voyage to Mycenae and Her Death

Cassandra’s Final Warning

Aeschylus’ Agamemnon gives her the longest ancient scene. She arrives at Mycenae in Agamemnon’s chariot and stays silent while Clytemnestra urges her to enter the house. Once alone with the chorus, she cries out to Apollo, sees the old crimes of the house of Atreus and the coming murder, and names the “two-footed lioness” who shares her bed with a wolf in the lion’s absence and who will kill her too (Agamemnon 1072–1330, esp. 1258–1263). The chorus understand little of it, and she walks in to die, asking that those who hear her witness that a woman will die for her and a man for a man (Agamemnon 1317–1320).

Death at Mycenae

Homer already knows how she died: Agamemnon’s shade tells Odysseus that he heard the most pitiful cry of Priam’s daughter Cassandra, “whom guileful Clytemnestra killed beside me” (Odyssey 11.421–423). Apollodorus says that after Agamemnon returned to Mycenae with Cassandra he was murdered by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, and they killed Cassandra too (Epitome 6.23). Hyginus says that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus planned together to kill both Agamemnon and Cassandra (Fabulae 117). Pausanias says that Agamemnon’s tomb was shown at Mycenae, though the people near Amyclae claimed that her tomb was theirs, and that a shared tomb there belonged to Teledamus and Pelops, whom people called twin sons of Cassandra (Pausanias 2.16.6).

Cassandra in Ancient Literature

Homer

The Iliad names Cassandra only as Priam’s loveliest daughter and as the first to see Hector’s body brought home (Iliad 13.365–366, 24.699–706). It does not call her a prophet, and the story of Apollo’s gift and curse belongs to later writers. The Odyssey mentions her death by Clytemnestra’s hand (11.421–423).

Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

Aeschylus gives Cassandra her fullest ancient treatment: a captive who sees the murder in the house before it happens, the audience understanding what the chorus does not.

Euripides’ Trojan Women

In Euripides’ Trojan Women, set in the ruined city, the herald Talthybius tells Hecuba that Agamemnon has chosen Cassandra for himself (Trojan Women 247–252), and she enters with a torch, singing her own wedding hymn and foretelling his death (298–364).

Apollodorus and Hyginus

Apollodorus lists her among Priam’s children and gives the story of Apollo (Library 3.12.5), her rape by Ajax and her allotment to Agamemnon (Epitome 5.22–23), while Hyginus gives a short account of the cursing of her prophecies (Fabulae 93) and of her death with Agamemnon (Fabulae 117).

Art Described by Pausanias

Pausanias saw the outrage of Ajax against Cassandra in several works: a painting in the Painted Stoa at Athens showing Ajax himself, Cassandra and other captive women (Pausanias 1.15.2), the chest of Cypselus, on which Ajax of Locris is shown dragging Cassandra from Athena (5.19.5), and the throne of Zeus at Olympia (5.11.5). He also records a story that the chest which Eurypylus took from the spoils of Troy, and which held an image that drove him mad when he opened it, had been thrown away by Cassandra to be a curse to whichever Greek found it (7.19.7).

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Homer Never Calls Her a Prophet

The Iliad calls Cassandra only the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters. The gift of prophecy and its curse appear in later writers.

The Modern “Cassandra Complex”

The phrase Cassandra complex is a modern term for a person whose true warnings are not believed. It does not occur in ancient sources.

Cassandra Sources

Homer, Iliad 13.363–369, 24.699–706; Odyssey 11.421–423. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1072–1330 (esp. 1202–1212, 1258–1276, 1317–1320). Euripides, Trojan Women 247–252, 298–364. Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5; Epitome 5.17, 5.22–23, 6.23. Hyginus, Fabulae 91, 93, 117. Pausanias 1.15.2, 2.16.6, 3.19.6, 3.26.5, 5.11.5, 5.19.5, 7.19.7, 10.26.3, 10.27.1, 10.31.2. Virgil, Aeneid 2.244–247, 2.341–346, 2.403–406. Quintus of Smyrna, Fall of Troy 12, 13 and 14.

See Also: Priam, Hecuba, Apollo, Agamemnon, Paris, Helen, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Trojan War, Athena