Marriage of Peleus and Thetis

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Marriage of Peleus and Thetis
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Eris the goddess of discord
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The golden apple
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Peter Paul Rubens, 'The Judgement of Paris',
about 1600. London, The National Gallery
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Judgement of Paris
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Hera offered to make him king of Europe and
Asia Athena offered wisdom and skill in
war Aphrodite offered the love of the world's
most beautiful woman. This was Helen of Sparta,
wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted
Aphrodite's gift and awarded the apple to her,
receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the
Greeks and especially of Hera.
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Paris abducting Helen
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Greek Bireme ca. 1250 B.C.
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Odysseus and Achilles Odysseus had by this time
married Penelope and fathered a son, Telemachus.
In order to avoid the war, he feigned madness and
sowed his fields with salt. Palamedes outwitted
him by placing his infant son in front of the
plough's path, and Odysseus turned aside,
unwilling to kill his son, so revealing his
sanity and forcing him to join the war.3343
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At Scyros, Achilles had an affair with the king's
daughter Deidamea, resulting in a child,
Neoptolemus. Achilles' mother disguised him as a
woman so that he would not have to go to war,
but, according to one story, they blew a horn,
and Achilles revealed himself by seizing a spear
to fight intruders, rather than fleeing.
According to another story, they disguised
themselves as merchants bearing trinkets and
weaponry, and Achilles was marked out from the
other women by admiring the wrong goods.
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The Discovery of Achilles among the Daughters of
Lycomedes
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Sacrifice of Iphigenia
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Chryses attempting to ransom his daughter
Chryseis from Agamemnon, Apulian red-figure
crater by the Athens 1714 Painter, ca. 360 BC350
BC, Louvre
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Mission to Achilles
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Briseis taken from Achilles
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Agamemnon taking Briseis
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Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of
Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the
Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying
down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a
prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the
counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which
the son of Atreus, king of men, and great
Achilles, first fell out with one another.
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The significance of Agamemnon's actions lies not
in the fact that he kidnapped Chryseis - such
abductions were commonplace in the Greek world -
but in the fact that he refused to release her
upon her father's request. 1.