In ages past, the mighty Zeus was struck with an infatuation for Thetis, the loveliest daughter of Nereus, The Old Man of the Sea. Although Zeus, renowned for his womanizing, greatly desired to sleep with the lovely Thetis, he was stopped by a prophecy. It had been foretold that Thetis would have a son who would become greater than his father. Zeus, who had earlier overthrown his own father Cronus, knew that if he or any other god had a child with Thetis, his throne would be placed in jeopardy and the gods would lose a good deal of their power. To protect his throne, Zeus gave Thetis as a wife to Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons.
This wedding was lavish, and every god and goddess on Mount Olympus was invited with one exception: that of the goddess Eris. As the goddess of strife, she was left out for obvious reasons. Eris was deeply offended at this (the deities took offense very easily) and swore to get revenge. Eris was quite cunning, and so she devised this plan. She created a superbly crafted golden apple on which she inscribed "For the Fairest." Then, when the wedding party was at its height, she threw it into the midst of the revelers. This action created more strife than even Eris could have imagined.
At first, the wedding guests were stunned. Once they regained their composure, they discovered what had been written on the apple. Hera, the first and primary wife of Zeus and queen of the gods, Athena, the favorite daughter of Zeus and the goddess of wisdom, and Aphrodite, every man’s favorite goddess and the goddess of love, immediately began to quarrel over whom the apple belonged to. Each believed that she was the fairest and that the apple was meant for her. Finally, the three goddesses took their dispute to Zeus and asked him to settle it. Zeus knew that if he favored one goddess over the others, the others would make his life miserable. Instead, Zeus avoided the trap by leading the goddesses to Mount Ida, near the walls of the city Troy.
On that mountain stood the youngest son of King Priam of Troy, Paris. Paris was said to be one of the fairest of all mortal men to ever walk the earth, and therefore Zeus chose him to judge between the three goddesses. The goddesses were not content to simply allow Paris to choose. Each tried to bribe Paris into choosing in her favor. Hera offered Paris all of Asia as his kingdom as well as infinite riches. Athena offered Paris victory in war and the wisdom of the gods, beyond all other mortals. Aphrodite promised Paris the hand of the loveliest and most beautiful woman in the world. Paris, being a renowned ladies’ man, immediately chose the woman. This rash act came later to be known as the Judgement of Paris, and was quite imprudent, for it earned him the undying enmity of Athena and Hera, who vowed to destroy both Paris and Troy.
At the same time, another mortal was faced with a difficult decision. Helen, the daughter of Zeus and the mortal Leda and the loveliest woman in the world, was being courted by all the kings of Greece, including Diomedes, Ajax, Achilles, Odysseus, and Menelaos, whose brother, Agamemnon, was married to her sister Klytaimnestra. The choice of a husband was made even more difficult by the fact that Helen knew that a war would erupt between the suitors as soon as she made a decision. To avoid a war and protect the man she chose, King Tydareus, Helen’s father, had all the suitors make an alliance between themselves requiring them to respect the rights of Helen’s choice and to come to the man’s aid if Helen was ever forcefully taken from him. All the suitors agreed, for they all wished to marry Helen. With the threat of war removed, Helen was free to choose. She chose King Menelaos of Sparta, for he was the richest of the