Cassandra

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Wikipedia

Cassandra
Trojan Princess
Priestess of Apollo
Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan (1898, London); Cassandra in front of the burning city of Troy, depicted with disheveled hair denoting the insanity ascribed to her by the Trojans [1]
AbodeTroy, Mycenae
Genealogy
Parents
SiblingsHector, Paris, Troilus, Creusa, Polyxena, Helenus
ConsortAgamemnon

In Greek mythology, Cassandra, also spelled Kassandra or Casandra, (/kəˈsændrə/;[2] Ancient Greek: Κασ(σ)άνδρα, pronounced [kas:ándra], or referred to as Alexandra; Ἀλεξάνδρα)[3] was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies, but never be believed. Cassandra lived through the Trojan War and survived the sack of the city, but was murdered by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus when Agamemnon brought her to Mycenae as a pallake.

In contemporary usage, her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate predictions, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.

Etymology

Hjalmar Frisk (Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, 1960–1970) notes "unexplained etymology", citing "various hypotheses" found in Wilhelm Schulze,[4] Edgar Howard Sturtevant,[5] J. Davreux,[6] and Albert Carnoy.[7] R. S. P. Beekes[8] cites García Ramón's derivation of the name from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kend- "raise". The Online Etymology Dictionary states "though the second element looks like a fem. form of Greek andros "of man, male human being." Watkins suggests PIE *(s)kand- "to shine" as source of second element. The name also has been connected to kekasmai "to surpass, excel.[9]"

Description

Cassandra was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "shortish, round-faced, white, mannish figure, good nose, good eyes, dark pupils, blondish, curly, good neck, bulky breasts, small feet, calm, noble, priestly, an accurate prophet foreseeing everything, practicing hard, virgin".[10] Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, she was illustrated as ". . .of moderate stature, round-mouthed, and auburn-haired. Her eyes flashed. She knew the future."[11] In the Iliad, Homer described Cassandra as the fairest of all Priam's daughters.[12] Euripides wrote that she had golden hair and wore a crown of laurels when prophesizing.[13]

Gift of prophecy

Cassandra was given the gift of uttering true prophecies, but was cursed so that they would never be believed. Commonly, Cassandra incurred Apollo's wrath by refusing him sexual favors after promising herself to him in exchange for the gift of prophecy.[14] In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, she bemoans her relationship with the god:

Apollo, Apollo!
God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,
Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!

And she acknowledges her fault:

I consented [marriage] to Loxias [Apollo] but broke my word. ... Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.[15]

Latin author Hyginus writes in his Fabulae:[16]

Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen, in the temple of Apollo, exhausted from practising, is said to have fallen asleep; whom, when Apollo wished to embrace her, she did not afford the opportunity of her body. On account of which thing, when she prophesied true things, she was not believed.

However, other versions of the story have been given; Tzetzes wrote that Cassandra and her brother Helenus received their gifts of prophecy after being left overnight in the temple of Apollo, and in the morning they were found with serpents licking their ears.[17] Additionally, Euripides wrote that Apollo left Cassandra to be a virgin, and the god was angered when Agamemnon took her as a concubine.[18]

Her cursed gift became an endless pain and frustration to her. She was seen as a liar and a madwoman by her family and by the Trojan people. Because of this, her father, Priam, had locked her away in a chamber and guarded her like the madwoman she was believed to be.[19] Though Cassandra made many predictions that went unheeded, the one prophecy that was believed was that of Paris being her abandoned brother.[20]

Ancient sources

Woodcut illustration of Cassandra's prophecy of the fall of Troy (left) and her death (right), from Giovanni Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris, printed by Johann Zainer [de] at Ulm ca. 1474.

Cassandra appears in texts by Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus and Euripides. While details such as her parentage remain the same between accounts, each author depicts her prophetic powers differently.

Homer

Cassandra is mentioned in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. In the Iliad, she is named as the comeliest daughter of King Priam,[21] and a "peer of golden Aphrodite."[22] When her brother Hector was killed, she announced his death to the Trojan people so they could mourn and see his body as it was brought back into the city.[23]

In the Odyssey, Agamemnon's shade informs Odysseus of his death at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra; Cassandra was murdered as she stood next to him.[24]

Virgil

As the Aeneid takes place after Cassandra's death, she is mentioned by multiple characters but does not appear herself. Cassandra is mentioned prophesizing the fall of Troy[25] and Aeneas' journey to Italy.[26] In one scene, when Trojan soldiers saw the Greeks had kidnapped Cassandra from Minerva's temple and bound her in chains, they attempted to free her, but were quickly defeated.[27] Coroebus, who was in love with Cassandra, was the first to charge into battle. He died alongside Rhipeus, Dymas, and Hypanis.

Seneca the Younger

Likewise Seneca the Younger, in his play Agamemnon, has her prophesy why Agamemnon deserves his recorded death:

Quid me vocatis sospitem solam e meis, umbrae meorum? te sequor, tota pater Troia sepulte; frater, auxilium Phrygum terrorque Danaum, non ego antiquum decus video aut calentes ratibus ambustis manus, sed lacera membra et saucios vinclo gravi illos lacertos. te sequor… (Ag. 741–747)

Why do you call me, the lone survivor of my family, My shades? I follow you, father buried with all of Troy; Brother, bulwark of Trojans, terrorizer of Greeks, I do not see your beauty of old or hands warmed by burnt ships, But your lacerated limbs and those famous shoulders savaged By heavy chains. I follow you...[28]

This behavior is reflected in acts 4 and 5 as "her mantic vision" is "supplemented by a further (in)sight into what is going on inside the palace in act 5 when she becomes a quasi-messenger and provides a meticulous account of Agamemnon's murder in the bath: 'I see and I am there and I enjoy it, no false vision deceives my eyes: let's watch' (video et intersum et fruor, / imago visus dubia non fallit meos: / spectemus.)."[29]

Aeschylus

"Cassandra and Ajax" depicted on a terracotta amphora, circa 450 BC

In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, a play in the Oresteia trilogy, Cassandra has been taken by Agamemnon to Mycenae, where they are welcomed home by Clytemnestra and an entourage of servants. Agamemnon enters the palace after his wife but Cassandra remains outside in the chariot. There, Cassandra receives violent visions and prophesizes that Clytemnestra will murder Agamemnon; a crows watches on, but is unable to comprehend was she says.[30] In this version of the story, Clytemnestra waits until Agamemnon has gotten into the bath before she entangles him in a net and stabs him three times with a blade.[31] Cassandra, accepting her fate, walks into her inevitable offstage murder with full knowledge of what is to befall her.[32]: pp. 42–55 [33]: pp. 52–58  Clytemnestra announces that she murdered Cassandra to avenge her honor as a wife, as she was insulted that Agamemnon took a concubine.[34]

Menelaus captures Helen in Troy, Ajax the Lesser drags Cassandra from Palladium before eyes of Priam, Roman mural from the Casa del Menandro, Pompeii

Mythology

Before the fall of Troy

Before the fall of Troy, Cassandra foresaw that if Paris went to Sparta and brought Helen back as his wife, her arrival would spark the Trojan War and lead to the destruction of the city. Ignoring Cassandra's warning, Paris went to Sparta and returned with Helen. While the people of Troy rejoiced, Cassandra was enraged; she furiously snatched Helen's golden veil off her head and tore at her hair.[20]

Ajax and Cassandra by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1806

In the Aeneid, Cassandra warned the Trojans about the Greeks hiding inside the Trojan Horse, Agamemnon's death, her own demise at the hands of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, her mother Hecuba's fate, Odysseus's ten-year wanderings before returning home, and the murder of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra by the latter's children Electra and Orestes.[25] Cassandra additionally predicted that her cousin Aeneas would escape during the fall of Troy and found a new nation in Rome.[26]

The sack of Troy

Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy during the Trojan War out of love for Cassandra and in exchange for her hand in marriage, but both were killed.[35] According to one account, Priam offered Cassandra to Telephus's son Eurypylus, in order to induce Eurypylus to fight on the side of the Trojans.[36] Cassandra was also the first to see the body of her brother Hector being brought back to the city.

Cassandra imploring Athena for revenge against Ajax, by Jerome-Martin Langlois, 1810–1838.

In The Fall of Troy by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Cassandra attempted to warn the Trojan people that Greek warriors were hiding in the Trojan Horse while they were celebrating their victory over the Greeks with feasting. Disbelieving Cassandra, the Trojans resorted to calling her names and hurling insults at her. Attempting to prove herself right, Cassandra took an axe in one hand and a burning torch in the other, and ran towards the Trojan Horse, intent on destroying the Greeks herself, but the Trojans stopped her. The Greeks hiding inside the Horse were relieved, but alarmed by how clearly she had divined their plan.[37]

Ajax and Cassandra by Solomon J. Solomon, 1886.

During the sack of the city, Cassandra sought shelter in the temple of Athena. There, she embraced the wooden statue of Athena in supplication for her protection, but was abducted and brutally raped by Ajax the Lesser. Cassandra clung so tightly to the statue of the goddess that Ajax knocked it from its stand as he dragged her away. Ajax's actions amounted to sacrilege, as he had defiled both the Athena's temple and a person under her protection.[38]

In Pseudo-Apollodorus' Epitome, Ajax's death comes at the hands of both Athena and Poseidon. Athena threw a thunderbolt at his ship, destroying it. Ajax made his way to safety on a rock, and declared that he had been saved in spite of Athena's intentions. However, Poseidon then split the rock with his trident, casting Ajax to his death. Eventually his body washed upon the shores of Myconos, where he was buried by Thetis.[39]

In some versions, Cassandra intentionally left a chest behind in Troy that would curse whichever Greek opened it first. Inside the chest was an image of Dionysus, made by Hephaestus and presented to the Trojans by Zeus. It was given to the Greek leader Eurypylus as a part of his share of the victory spoils of Troy. When he opened the chest and saw the image of the god, he went mad.[40]

The aftermath of Troy and Cassandra's death

Once Troy had fallen, Cassandra was taken as a pallake (concubine) by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While he was away at war, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, had taken Aegisthus as her lover. When Cassandra and Agememnon returned to Mycenae, they were ambushed and murdered by Clytemnestra or Aegisthus.[41][42] In many tellings, Cassandra foresees her death and willingly accepts it.[43] Various sources state that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, who were murdered by Aegisthus.[44]

Ajax taking Cassandra, tondo of a red-figure kylix by the Kodros Painter [el], c. 440–430 BC, Louvre

The final resting place of Cassandra is either in Amyclae or Mycenae. Statues of Cassandra exist both in Amyclae and across the Peloponnese peninsula from Mycenae to Leuctra. In Mycenae, German business man and pioneer archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Grave Circle A the graves of Cassandra and Agamemnon and telegraphed back to King George I of Greece:

With great joy I announce to Your Majesty that I have discovered the tombs which the tradition proclaimed by Pausanias indicates to be the graves of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon and their companions, all slain at a banquet by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthos.

However, it was later discovered that the graves predated the Trojan War by at least 300 years.[45]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John Lemprière, Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary, first published 1788, London
  2. ↑ Avery, Catherine B. (1962). New Century Classical Handbook. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. p. 258.
  3. ↑ Lycophron, Alexandra 30; Pausanias, 3.19, 3.26.
  4. ↑ Wilhelm Schulze, Kleine Schriften (1966), 698, J. B. Hoffmann, Glotta 28, 52
  5. ↑ Edgar Howard Sturtevant, Class. Phil. 21, 248ff.
  6. ↑ J. Davreux, La légende de la prophétesse Cassandre (Paris, 1942) 90ff.
  7. ↑ Albert Carnoy, Les ét. class. 22, 344
  8. ↑ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 654
  9. ↑ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2019-05-01. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  10. ↑ Malalas, Chronography 5.106 Archived 2022-08-13 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ Dares Phrygius, History of the Fall of Troy 12 Archived 2023-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ↑ Homer, Iliad, 13.361
  13. ↑ Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, 751
  14. ↑ Apollodorus, Library, 3.12.5
  15. ↑ Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1208–1212.
  16. ↑ "Cassandra". Mortal Women of the Trojan War. Stanford University. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  17. ↑ Apollodorus, Library, 1.9 Note 20
  18. ↑ Euripides, The Trojan Women, 1.40
  19. ↑ Bogan, Louise. "Cassandra in the Classical World". maps-legacy.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  20. 1 2 "Cassandra". Archived from the original on 2007-02-18. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  21. ↑ Homer, Iliad, 13.361
  22. ↑ Homer, Iliad, 24.677
  23. ↑ Dillion, Matthew. "Kassandra: Mantic, Maenadic or Manic? Gender and the Nature of Prophetic Experience in Ancient Greece". openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au. Archived from the original on 2017-02-05. Retrieved 2021-11-27.
  24. ↑ Homer, Odyssey, 11.404
  25. 1 2 Virgil, Aeneid, 2.234
  26. 1 2 Virgil, Aeneid, 3.147
  27. ↑ Virgil, Aeneid, 2.402
  28. ↑ Trinacty, Christopher V. (2016). "Catastrophe in Dialogue". Vergilius. 62: 108. ISSN 0506-7294. JSTOR 90001703. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
  29. ↑ Trinacty, Christopher V. (2016). "Catastrophe in Dialogue". Vergilius. 62: 110–111. ISSN 0506-7294. JSTOR 90001703. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
  30. ↑ Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1107.
  31. ↑ Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1372.
  32. ↑ Bernard Knox Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient theatre (Baltimore and London: Penguin) 1979
  33. ↑ Anne Lebeck, The Oresteia: A study in language and structure (Washington) 1971
  34. ↑ Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1431.
  35. ↑ "Cassandra in the Classical World". English.illinois.edu. Archived from the original on 2019-05-11. Retrieved 2014-03-24.
  36. ↑ Dictys Cretensis 4.14 (Frazer, p. 95).
  37. ↑ Smyrnaeus, Quintus. "THE FALL OF TROY BOOK 12". www.theoi.com. Archived from the original on 2006-11-20. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  38. ↑ "Cassandra, Ancient Princess of Troy, Priestess and Prophetess". The Role of Women in the Art of Ancient Greece. Archived from the original on 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  39. ↑ "Apollodorus, Epitome, book E, chapter 6, section 6". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  40. ↑ "Cassandra – Greek Mythology Link". Maicar.com. Archived from the original on 2019-04-23. Retrieved 2014-03-24.
  41. ↑ Euripides, Electra, 1.
  42. ↑ Homer, Odyssey, 11.405-440.
  43. ↑ Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1431.
  44. ↑ "Pausanias, Description of Greece, Corinth, chapter 16, section 6". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  45. ↑ Harrington, Spencer P.M. (July–August 1999). "Behind the Mask of Agamemnon". Archaeological Institute of America. 52. Archived from the original on 2013-03-17. Retrieved 2021-12-01.

Primary sources

Further reading