Paris, A Compendium of the Ancient Gods

Hecuba queen of Troy, when she was carrying Paris, dreamed that she would bring forth a flaming torch that would burn the city; the seers, consulted, told her that this child would be the destruction of Troy, and the king Priam ordered him to be exposed upon Mount Ida. But the herdsman charged with the task could not slay the boy, and so left him on the mountainside, where he was suckled by a she-bear and afterwards taken in by a shepherd, who raised him as his own son. So Paris grew up among the herdsmen of Ida, ignorant of his true birth.

It was while he was tending sheep on the mountain that the three goddesses came to him: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, sent by Zeus to ask him to judge which of them was the fairest, after Eris had thrown among the gods the apple inscribed "to the fairest." Each goddess offered him a bribe: Hera promised power, Athena promised wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite promised the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris chose Aphrodite, and so the judgment was made; and when afterward he was recognized at Troy and restored to his royal place, he set sail for Greece — visited Sparta — was received as a guest of Menelaus — and carried off Helen, as Aphrodite had promised. So began the Trojan War.

In the war itself Paris was no champion. The Greeks despised him as a coward, and the Iliad shows him with little affection: he fights mostly with the bow rather than face to face, and on one famous occasion (Iliad 3) he is matched in single combat against Menelaus and is rescued from death only by Aphrodite's intervention. His brother Hector reproaches him bitterly more than once for his uselessness in the city's defense. Yet it was Paris, in the end, who killed Achilles — the arrow that struck the heel was guided by Apollo but loosed by his bow. Paris himself was slain shortly afterward by the arrows of Philoctetes, in the last year of the war, before Troy fell.

Curator’s note

What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay

The Judgment of Paris is one of the central narrative events of the Trojan Cycle, treated in the lost Cypria and surviving in summary in Proclus's Chrestomathy and in Pseudo-Apollodorus (Epitome 3.2). The Iliad alludes to it briefly at 24.25-30. Euripides's Trojan Women, Helen, and Andromache treat aspects of the Paris-Helen story. Ovid's Heroides 16-17 contains a literary exchange of letters between Paris and Helen at the moment of decision. The exposure of Paris on Mount Ida and his recognition is given by Pseudo-Apollodorus (3.12.5), Hyginus (Fabulae 91), and the lost Alexandros of Euripides (only fragments survive). Paris-as-Alexander (Greek Alexandros, 'defender of men,' the name given him by the herdsmen) is the Trojan name; the name Paris itself is non-Greek. The death of Paris by the arrow of Philoctetes is told in the Little Iliad and in Pseudo-Apollodorus (Epitome 5.8).

Kin in the sources

Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.

Child ofPriamthe king Priam ordered him to be exposed upon Mount Ida
Companion ofAphroditeParis chose Aphrodite, and so the judgment was made
Rival ofHeraHera promised power, Athena promised wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite promised the most beautiful woman in the world
Rival ofAthenaHera promised power, Athena promised wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite promised the most beautiful woman in the world
Consort ofHelencarried off Helen, as Aphrodite had promised. So began the Trojan War
Sibling ofHectorHis brother Hector reproaches him bitterly more than once for his uselessness
SlewAchillesit was Paris, in the end, who killed Achilles
Sibling ofCassandraShe was the first to recognize Paris when he returned from his exposure on Mount Ida

When the sources speak

Dated witnesses for The Heroic Cycle and the Tragic Houses. A date marks when the evidence was written down, not when the belief began. The whole timeline

c. 1600–1100 BCE: Mycenaean palace tablets in Linear B record offerings and divine names, but little continuous myth.
c. 1100–800 BCE: Post-palatial oral traditions and changing cult landscapes precede the surviving alphabetic epics.
late 8th–7th centuries BCE: The Iliad, Odyssey, Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days give influential but non-exclusive divine orders.
7th–6th centuries BCE: Homeric Hymns, lyric poetry, colonization, and local sanctuary traditions multiply regional narratives.
6th–5th centuries BCE: Orphic, Pythagorean, and mystery materials develop alternative cosmogonies and afterlife doctrines.
5th century BCE: Athenian tragedy and comedy recast heroic houses and divine justice for civic audiences.
4th century BCE: Philosophers, antiquarians, and local historians interpret or criticize inherited myth.
323–31 BCE: Hellenistic poets and scholars systematize variants across an enlarged Greek world.