Cassandra in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Cassandra

37 passages from 8 ancient authors that tell of Cassandra, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, lords of Troy, in Greek mythology. She was also known as Alexandra. According to one myth,... For the story in one place, read our article on Cassandra.

Homer (2)

Homer, Iliad 13.328–454Idomeneus' onslaughtIdomeneus and Meriones go into the battle like fire on a mountain, and Idomeneus kills Othryoneus, who had sought Cassandra's hand, and then Asius. He kills Alcathous, a son-in-law of Anchises, and Deiphobus' spear, thrown at Idomeneus, misses him and kills Hypsenor. Idomeneus boasts over each of his victims and calls on Zeus.
Homer, Iliad 24.677–804Hermes wakes Priam; Hector's funeralIn the night Hermes wakes Priam and warns him to leave before the Achaeans find him, and guides the wagon back across the river. Cassandra, from the citadel, is first to see them and cries to the city to come out and see Hector. The body is laid on a bed in the hall and Andromache, Hecuba and Helen each take up the lament. After nine days of gathering wood Hector is burned, the bones are put in a golden chest and a mound is raised, and the poem ends with a feast in Priam's house.

Apollodorus (1)

Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome E.5.1–23The death of Achilles, the Wooden Horse and the fall of TroyPenthesilea and then Memnon come to Troy's aid and are killed by Achilles, who is himself shot by Paris and Apollo. The contest for Achilles' arms drives Ajax to madness and suicide. Troy falls after Philoctetes shoots Paris, Helenus reveals the three conditions, Neoptolemus joins the army and Odysseus steals the Palladium, and the Greeks take the city with the Wooden Horse, Sinon and the beacon at Tenedos; the section closes with the sack, the deaths of Astyanax and Polyxena, and the division of the captives.

Pindar (1)

Pindar, Pythian Odes 11.1–64Pythian 11: for Thrasydaeus — Orestes and AgamemnonPindar invites the daughters of Cadmus to honour Thrasydaeus of Thebes, victor in the boys' foot-race, and then tells how Orestes was rescued by his nurse after Clytaemnestra killed Agamemnon and Cassandra, how he reached Strophius, and how he later killed his mother and Aegisthus. He asks whether a wind has blown him off course, like a traveller at a fork in the road, and returns to the glory of Thrasydaeus and his father. The ode ends with a prayer to Iolaüs and to Castor and Polydeuces, who live alternately at Therapne and on Olympus.

Aeschylus (6)

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1035–1177Fourth episode: Clytaemestra and Cassandra's first criesClytaemestra comes out and tells Cassandra to come inside, but Cassandra does not answer, and the Chorus tell her to obey. Clytaemestra gives up, and then Cassandra cries out to Apollo and begins to speak of the house of Atreus, its butchery and the murdered children, and of a bath and a net, while the Chorus do not understand her. She ends by lamenting the fall of Troy.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1178–1255Fourth episode (cont.): Cassandra's visions of the house of AtreusCassandra says that she will no longer speak in riddles, and tells how the Furies haunt the house for the old crime of Atreus, the banquet in which Thyestes was served the flesh of his own sons. She tells how Apollo loved her and cursed her never to be believed, and says that a lion lies in wait for her master, betrayed by the woman who is like a hound that licks his hand. The Chorus recognise the story of Thyestes, and Cassandra says that they will see Agamemnon dead.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1256–1330Fourth episode (cont.): Cassandra goes in to dieCassandra sees the lioness who will slay her, throws down her prophetic staff and garlands, and foretells that an avenger will come to repay her death and that of Agamemnon. She goes to the palace door, which she calls the gates of Death, and the Chorus pity her. Before she goes in she says that the house smells of blood and prays that her enemies will pay for killing a slave.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 810–913Third episode: Agamemnon arrives and Clytaemestra's welcomeAgamemnon arrives in his chariot with the captive Cassandra and greets Argos and its gods, saying that the gods have punished Troy and that he will deal with the affairs of the city in assembly. Clytaemestra then speaks before the citizens of her long loneliness, her fears for her husband and the reports of his death, and tells how she sent their son Orestes away for safety. She greets him with a string of images and tells her servants to strew purple cloths for his path.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 914–974Third episode (cont.): the purple tapestriesAgamemnon answers Clytaemestra's welcome and refuses to walk on the purple cloths, saying that such honour is for gods and not for a mortal, and that he does not want to be envied. She persuades him, and he gives way, has his sandals taken off, asks her to treat Cassandra kindly, and walks into the palace over the purple, praying that no god's envy may strike him. Clytaemestra prays to Zeus to fulfil her wishes.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1372–1447Fifth episode: Clytaemestra stands over the bodiesClytaemestra appears over the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra and says that she is not ashamed of what she has said or done. She tells how she threw a net, a robe, round him and struck him three times, and says that she did it to avenge Iphigenia. The Chorus are shocked and say that she will be an outcast, and she answers that they did not condemn Agamemnon when he killed his own child.

Euripides (9)

Euripides, Trojan Women 294–340aFirst episode: Cassandra enters with a torchTalthybius sends servants to bring Cassandra, and sees a light in the tent, and Hecuba says that it is not a fire but Cassandra coming with a torch in her hands. Cassandra, in a frenzy, cries that she is doing the god's service, lighting the bridal torches and singing for Hymen, and calls on her mother to dance at her wedding.
Euripides, Hecuba 59–153Parodos: Hecuba's dream and the Greek decision to sacrifice PolyxenaHecuba, an old slave, is helped out of the tent by her women, and tells of a terrible dream of a fawn torn from her knees by a wolf and of the ghost of Achilles on his tomb, and prays that her daughter and her son may be spared. The Chorus of captive Trojan women comes in to tell her that the Greeks have decided in assembly to sacrifice Polyxena on the grave of Achilles.
Euripides, Hecuba 786–845Third episode: Hecuba argues that guest-friendship must be avengedHecuba says that she may be a slave and weak, but the gods are strong, and Custom, which prevails over them, and that the law of the guest must not be broken. She reminds him that Cassandra, who lies at his side, is her own daughter, and asks what return she and her mother will have for those nights, and she wishes for a voice in hands and hair and feet, to embrace his knees in tears.
Euripides, Hecuba 1240–1295Exodos: Agamemnon's verdict and Polymestor's prophecyAgamemnon says that it goes against his grain to judge, but that Polymestor must bear what he has brought on himself, since he murdered a guest for gold. Polymestor, taunting them, says that Dionysus has told him that Hecuba will climb the ship's mast and be changed into a dog, that Cassandra must die, and that a murderous bath awaits Agamemnon in Argos. Agamemnon orders him to be cast away on a desert island, and the Chorus leaves for the ships.
Euripides, Trojan Women 1–47Prologue: Poseidon bids farewell to ruined TroyPoseidon, who with Phoebus built the walls of Troy, says that he has come from the Aegean to a city that lies in ruins, with its temples forsaken and Priam dead at the altar, while the Greeks carry off the spoils. He tells how the captive women are being allotted, some to Arcadia, some to Thessaly, some to the sons of Theseus, while the rest wait in the tents, and says that he bids farewell to the city, which would still stand if Pallas had not decreed its ruin. He sees Hecuba lying at the gate, and learns that Polyxena has died and that Cassandra has been taken by Agamemnon.
Euripides, Trojan Women 153–229Parodos: the captive Trojan women come out of the tentsThe Chorus of captive Trojan women comes out of the tents, asking Hecuba why she cries, and fearing what they will hear, whether the Argives have decided to kill them or to carry them off in the ships. Hecuba begs them not to bid Cassandra, the frantic prophetess, come out, and, asking whose slave she will become in her old age, mourns for her dead children and the dancing of Troy.
Euripides, Trojan Women 230–293First episode: Talthybius announces the allotment of the captivesTalthybius, the Greek herald, tells Hecuba that he has been sent with a message, and she asks to whom each of them has been given. He answers that Cassandra has been chosen for Agamemnon, Polyxena has been told to serve at Achilles' tomb, Andromache has been given to Achilles' son, and Hecuba to Odysseus, and Hecuba cries out against her fate.
Euripides, Trojan Women 341–405First episode: Cassandra sings her marriage song and foretells Agamemnon's doomThe Chorus asks Hecuba to hold the frantic maiden lest she rush to the Argive army, and Hecuba laments the fire-god's bridal torch. Cassandra tells her mother to crown her head and rejoice in her royal match, saying that if Apollo is a god, Agamemnon will find her a bride more dangerous than Helen, for she will destroy him and his house in vengeance for her brothers and her father.
Euripides, Trojan Women 406–461First episode: Cassandra foretells the wanderings of OdysseusThe Chorus says that Cassandra smiles at her own sad lot, and Talthybius says that if Apollo had not turned her wits he would not let her send the chiefs off with such ill omens. Cassandra mocks heralds as the hated servants of rulers, and, asked about Hecuba's fate, says that Hecuba will die at Troy and that Odysseus, who does not know what awaits him, will wander ten years beyond the Trojan ones, past Charybdis, the Cyclops and Circe, and descend alive to Hades, before she is led away.

Pausanias (5)

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.26.1–9Delphi: Polygnotus' painting of Troy after its capture (2): captive women, Epeus, Ajax and NeoptolemusPausanias continues the Polygnotus painting of Troy with the captive women Clymene, Creusa, Aristomache and Xenodice, and Epeus razing the wall with the Wooden Horse. He describes Ajax son of Oileus swearing an oath beside Cassandra and the image of Athena, the sons of Atreus, and Neoptolemus slaying Elasus and Astynous. He explains the bronze corselets of old, then Laodice, Medusa and a woman with a child.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.15.1–4Athens Agora: the Painted Colonnade and its paintingsThe Painted Colonnade holds paintings of the Athenians against the Spartans at Oenoe, Theseus fighting the Amazons, the Greek kings after the fall of Ilium, and the battle of Marathon with the hero Marathon, Theseus, Athena, Hercules, Callimachus, Miltiades and Echetlus. Bronze shields hang there, some taken from the Scionians and some, smeared with pitch, from the Spartans captured at Sphacteria. A trophy on a nearby gate marks a cavalry victory over Plistarchus.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.16.1–7Mycenae: Perseus, the Argive kings, the Lion Gate and the tombsPausanias lists the Argive kings from Argos and Triopas to Danaus and Lynceus, the division between Acrisius and Proetus, and the death of Acrisius by Perseus’ quoit. He gives accounts of why Perseus founded Mycenae, and of how the Argives later destroyed it. He describes the surviving walls with the lion gate, the Persea fountain, the treasuries of Atreus and the graves of Agamemnon and his companions, with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus outside the walls.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.26.1–11Thalamae, Pephnus, Leuctra, Cardamyle and Gerenia: the Machaon shrinePausanias describes the dream oracle of Ino near Thalamae, the islet of Pephnus where the Dioscuri were said to be born, and Leuctra, with its shrines of Aesculapius, Cassandra and Love and the Ithomatian Zeus found in a burnt wood. He then describes Cardamyle and Gerenia, with the tomb and sanctuary of Machaon, Mount Calathium and Alagonia, and explains why Eurypylus’ name is not spoken at Pergamus.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.19.1–10Olympia: the Chest of Cypselus, fourth and fifth fieldsPausanias describes the fourth field, including Boreas and Orithyia, Hercules and Geryon, the fight of Achilles and Memnon, the Dioscuri rescuing Helen, scenes from the Trojan war, the judgment of Paris and the sons of Oedipus. He then gives his readings of the unlabelled uppermost field, such as Ulysses and Circe, and guesses that the verses are by Eumelus of Corinth.

Quintus Smyrnaeus (4)

Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy (Posthomerica) 12.444–585Laocoon's sons and CassandraLaocoon still urges the burning of the Horse, and Athena sends two serpents from the island of Calydna that kill his sons. The Trojans make offerings, but the flames die and the temples sweat blood. Cassandra alone sees the truth and runs at the Horse with a firebrand and a two-edged halberd, and the Trojans drag her away.
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy (Posthomerica) 13.168–296The deaths of Priam and AstyanaxDiomedes kills Coroebus, who had hoped to marry Cassandra, and the aged Ilioneus, who begs for mercy in vain. Neoptolemus kills Pammon, Polites, Antiphonus and Agenor, and then beheads Priam at the altar of Zeus after Priam asks to die. The Argives throw Astyanax from a tower and drag Andromache into slavery, and only the house of Antenor is spared.
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy (Posthomerica) 13.415–563Troy burns; Aethra rescuedThe gods mourn Troy, all but Hera and Athena, though Athena turns away in anger as Aias son of Oileus outrages Cassandra in her temple. Fire destroys the city and Trojans die in their burning houses, and the glow is seen from Ida and Tenedos. Aethra is found by her grandsons Demophoon and Acamas, who promise to take her home to Greece. Laodice is swallowed by the earth, and the Pleiad Electra hides herself from sight.
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy (Posthomerica) 14.1–120The spoil of TroyThe Argives plunder Troy. Menelaus leads Helen from the burning city, and Cassandra falls to Agamemnon, Andromache to Neoptolemus and Hecuba to Odysseus. Xanthus mourns with his Nymphs, and the Argives sacrifice and feast at the ships.

Lycophron (9)

Lycophron, Alexandra 1–114Alexandra 1–114: The slave's report; Troy burnt before, and the judge of three goddesses sails to seize a wifeA slave appointed to watch Cassandra tells Priam that he will repeat her prophecies, which she once poured out in confused riddling cries like the Sphinx's. As the Greek sailors loose their cables at dawn, she begins by lamenting a city already burnt once before by a hero called a lion begotten in three evenings, and sees it fired a second time. She then turns on a herdsman-turned-sailor, once the judge of the beauty of three goddesses, and foretells that a ship will carry him to Gytheion, where he will seize a woman like a wolf taking a heifer.
Lycophron, Alexandra 115–251Alexandra 115–251: The wife of five husbands; the heifer sacrificed to the winds; Cassandra's regret for ignored oraclesCassandra warns the seaman that a man of justice will rob him of his bride, and that he will come back to his burnt country embracing the wraith of a woman married five times. Her five bridegrooms are described through riddling epithets, among them two wolf-eagles, a half-Cretan stranger and a man who pines for her phantom face in his dreams. The Greeks then sacrifice a heifer to the blustering winds, a hind saving her from the knife, and Cassandra wishes her father had heeded the oracles and destroyed the two in one doom. The section closes with children shut in a chest, Ares dancing over the land, and the fields bristling with spears.
Lycophron, Alexandra 252–405Alexandra 252–405: The fall of Troy's defenders, Cassandra's own seizure, and the wreck of the Greek fleetCassandra hears lamentation from the towers and foresees an eagle snatching up the dearest nursling of her brothers; his slayer, called a trafficker in corpses, is said to hide in a woman's robe at the loom and to cower even in sleep before her brother's spear. She mourns the destruction of that brother, 'a pillar of our house', and foretells the burning of the Dorian host among their ships, then grieves for a young man's death, a victim slaughtered at a marriage sacrifice, and an aged captive stoned to death. She herself, who refused the god Thoraios and took Pallas as her model, will be haled like a dove into the vulture's eyrie, and the goddess in her shrine will turn her eyes to the ceiling in anger. For one man's sin Hellas will mourn thousands of empty tombs, and the returning ships will break on named cliffs, one man being struck down by a three-taloned spear and cast up dead on the shore.
Lycophron, Alexandra 406–540Alexandra 406–540: Graves far from home; five exiles settle on an island; a god sows quarrel among the doomedCassandra says that the whole land and even the shore of Acheron will mourn her bridal, since countless men will be devoured by sea-monsters while others find graves in strange lands. She names some of the dead: an old man blinded by his father who will be buried at Eion, three 'sea-gulls' laid in the glades of Cercaphus, and two who kill each other at the mouth of the Pyramus. Five exiles are then said to come to a horned island, among them a kinsman banished by his father's taunts and a countryman who digs for copper and whose father was killed by a tusk. She prays that Zeus never send the Lapersii against her country, and takes hope from a god who will start grievous wrangling when the doomed hosts receive their fatal guest at a banquet.
Lycophron, Alexandra 541–693Alexandra 541–693: Quarrelling cousins, the leaders' settlements in the West, and one man's wanderingsThe men at the banquet first tear at each other with jeers and then, as cousins, take up the spear, and two pairs fall, Hades receiving one pair while the other brothers are welcomed to Olympos on alternate days, undying and dead. Cassandra foretells the wanderings of many other leaders, among them Cepheus and Praxandrus, a leader who founds Argyrippa while his comrades are turned into birds, men who sail to the Gymnesian rocks as slingers, and others who reach Iberia and Libya. One man, the sole survivor of his friends, is carried past the one-eyed lion, Charybdis, enchanting nightingales and a dragoness who turns men into swine, and at last goes down to the dark plain of the dead to consult the ancient seer.
Lycophron, Alexandra 979–1125Alexandra 979–1125: Colonies in the West, a man killed in his bath, and Cassandra's own deathUnhappy men build a city like Ilios and kill the descendants of Xuthus in the temple of Laphria, and the men of Croton sack the city of the Amazon Clete. Exiles settle at Tereina, Melita, Othronus and Temessa and on the Crotonian fields, and a woman who burns the fleet of her masters is hung on a cliff that takes her name. A man entangled in a net at his bath is struck down with an axe, his ghost having seen the bitter housekeeping of the lioness, and Cassandra says that she herself will lie beside the bath, cleft by the sword of a jealous woman who treats her as a stolen bride rather than a spear-won prize. A whelp will avenge his father by plunging a sword into the viper, and her husband and master will be called Zeus by the Spartans.
Lycophron, Alexandra 1126–1252Alexandra 1126–1252: Cassandra's shrine and the maidens' penance, her mother and brother, and the founder of thirty towersThe chiefs of the Daunians will build Cassandra a shrine on the banks of the Salpe, where girls who wish to escape unwelcome marriage will embrace her image. For the sake of her impious wedlock the Locrian towns and the house of Ileus will pay a thousand years of penance by sending their unwed daughters to the goddess, and the people of Ilios will keep watch for them and praise whoever kills them. Her mother will become the attendant of the triform goddess, and her brother will live as a hero in the Islands of the Blest and rescue the Aonians from an armed host, after the woes of the rulers of Cnossus. A kinsman's son, called the son of Castnia, goes to Tyrrhenia with Tarchon and Tyrsenus and founds thirty towers when he counts the young of the dark sow.
Lycophron, Alexandra 1253–1368Alexandra 1253–1368: The sow's colony and the Sibyl, and the chain of rapes and reprisals between the two continentsThe founder sets up a bronze image of the sow and her young and builds a shrine to Pallenis, putting his fathers' gods and his aged sire before his wife and goods, and, judged most pious even by his foes, founds a famous land near Circaeon and the Sibyl's cave. Cassandra then recounts the older quarrel: the carrying off of the ox-eyed girl from Lerne to the lord of Memphis, the reprisal on the Saraptian heifer taken to Crete, an expedition sent with Teucer and Scamandrus to the Bebryces, and the theft of the fleece by the leader of the single sandal. Further raids follow, a hero taking the girdle and an archer from Themiscyra, the Amazons' invasion of Attica, and a champion in a hide who levels the hill of Troy with the spade. The falcons from Tmolus then ravage Italy, and the fire-brand wakes the old strife again, so that the wronged side will repay the injury threefold and fourfold.
Lycophron, Alexandra 1369–1474Alexandra 1369–1474: The conquerors to come, Cassandra's closing complaint, and the slave's last wordsCassandra foretells a succession of later conquerors, beginning with a Zeus called Lapersios who will burn the foe's dwellings and with whom she will die. Next come the son of a man slain in a net, leading a host of many tongues, a Phrygian who avenges his brothers, a giant of the seed of Perseus who walks over the sea and sails over the land, and at last a tawny lion sprung from Aeacus and Dardanus who will quiet the tumult and make the Argive chiefs cower before the wolf-leader of Galadra. She complains that the god who sought her bridal has discredited her words, though he will make her oracles true, and then returns to her prison. The slave ends by telling Priam that he has reported her speech as he was commanded, and prays that god turn her prophecies to a fairer issue.