![]() Although some claim that Zeus chose Paris to judge the beauty contest between the goddesses because of his fairness in decision-making, it’s more likely that Zeus wanted a Trojan prince who would be led astray by a beautiful woman. For this he was dubbed Alexander, meaning protector of men.Īs a young man, Paris fell in love with the Oread (nymph) Oenone, and soon they had an intense physical relationship, followed by a son of their own. The boy proved upright and true, scaring away a group of cattle-thieves and returning their stolen animals to the original owners. Instead of dying on the mountainside, the infant was given suckle by a she-bear, and after nine days the herdsman gave in and adopted him, rearing him as his own son. Agelaus too couldn’t kill the boy, so abandoned him on the slopes of Mount Ida, to the south-east of Troy, to let nature take its course. However, his parents couldn’t face having their baby killed to block that prophecy, so instructed their chief herdsman Agelaus to remove the infant and deal with him. His birth was blighted by a dream his mother had immediately beforehand, interpreted by the seer Aesacus as foretelling the destruction of Troy. ![]() ![]() Paris was the child of King Priam of Troy and his Queen Hecuba. She was to be Greek, so he needed a prominent Trojan to abduct or seduce her, and Paris was perfect for this role. Zeus knew the best way to draw them into a war was over a woman. The Greek states were too far from Troy and its surrounding state of the Troad for war to arise from territorial disputes, or even conflicts of interest. All went according to plan, and his next step was to arrange the cause of that war. He set up the marriage of Thetis to Peleus to serve two purposes: their son would be the Greek warrior Achilles, and the feast attended by the deities would enable Eris to provoke a beauty contest between Athena, Hera and Aphrodite. Zeus had decided that the only way to solve the problem of there being too many mortals on earth was to arrange a war between the Greeks and Trojans.
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