#judgement of paris

[faithschaffer]

"For the fairest"

Continuing my Greek mythology series with the Judgement of Paris!

[bloodyshadow1]

imagine Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena going to Odysseus instead of Paris with the apple. (in lore this would never work since the goddess know Odysseus would favor Athena, but let's pretend) They tell him to give the apple to the fairest like in the story. And then he just leaves.

He goes back to his palace to the shock of the goddesses and just gives Penelope the golden apple. He's just like yeah, 3 goddesses basically told me to give you the apple, I don't really know why, but here I am.

Like what are they going to do, his choice perfectly aligns with all their domains. Aphrodite? How is chosing his wife as the most beautiful and fairest not an act of love. (she might think it's blasphemy to put his wife above her, but I dont' think she'd mind if it's an honest and sincere act of love that he does) Hera? How is him putting his wife and his marriage above all else anything but a celebration of her domain. Athena? She'd probably be the most cool at the start, but how is that not a brilliant 3rd option to take (really 4th) that doesn't insult any of the goddesses

[deyeryrey]

Judgement of Paris

For the "Зорі над Олімпом" ("Stars over Olympus") project from pocketstarsua

[alexandriaarchive]

Hera and Aphrodite

Boeotian-Kabeiric skyphos

450-400 BC

[yannisdesk]

Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera during the Judgement of Paris.

[mask131]

Some people are very confused about why, in the myth of the Judgement of Paris, the three goddesses who fall for the Apple of Discord trick are Aphrodite, Hera and Athena. They usually understand why Aphrodite and Hera would fall for the trick of "the most beautiful" - one is the goddess of love, sexuality, romance and beauty ; the other is the queen of the goddesses. But when it comes to Athena, they tend to have a hard time seeing the goddess of wisdom, war, peace, intelligence and virginity get enroled into a "I'm more beautiful than you" petty feud.

... Except it is very much in line with her character, and yes, these three deities are in classical mythology the most vain of the goddesses.

Now, I will here use both Greek and Roman example mixed together because I do not have time to do a thorough split and explanation for everything - so rather let us take an overview of the goddesses' legends as a whole, throughout the centuries.

Aphrodite is vain, this is something that has been established regularly. She is a being of seduction and love, she is the most beautiful of the goddesses since birth and if it wasn't enough she had her husband create a magical belt for her that makes her attractive to anyone who sees her (a husband she cheated on with one of the worst gods of Greek mythology just because said husband was ugly and the other god was hot. Hated but hot.)

One version of Echo's legend has Pan's unrequired love for her caused by Aphrodite as a punishment for not giving her the "most beautiful" award (and turned the other contestant who won into a shark). Aphrodite persecuted Psyche because she was said to be more beautiful than her. Myrrha was cursed by Aphrodite to fall in love with her father because her mother claimed she was more beautiful than the goddess. And there's a lot of other tales like that - so it is well established that not only is Aphrodite the most beautiful goddess, she makes al lot of efforts to stay that way and will be VERY angry if anyone refuses her this title (sounds a bit insecure if you ask me but what do I know?)

If we go to Hera, we have again a certain case of pride and a status to be held. Hera is renowned for her beautiful eyes (the famous "cow-eyes" which no, are not an insult, but were an Ancient Greek compliment, because cow-eyes were deemed to be beautiful), and she is the queen of the gods, Zeus' eternal queen, THE first goddess among them all. That's a certain status to hold - and since she is known to have a bad temper, this comes of as a form of vanity and jealousy. The fact Herakles was named Herakles, "the glory of Hera", was precisely in an attempt to appease the goddess' wrath by appealing to her with flattery (turns out it didn't work). Remember: when Zeus had children of his own, without female help, such as Athena (or rather when it looked like he produced Athena on his own), Hera got pissed off because she saw this as a personal offense and tried to have a child of her own without Zeus just to prove him she could do it too (and the result was always disastrous, ranging from Hephaistos to FRIGGIN TYPHON).

This also ties into the whole idea of Hera persecuting Zeus' lovers and "bastards" out of jealousy. Note that she does not persecute ALL of Zeus' lovers, nor does she persecutes all of his extra-marital children... She always picks up those that Zeus seems to favor. That's how it all started with Herakles: Zeus was boasting about how he was going to shower his son with great gifts and a glorious destiny and all that, and Hera wouldn't have that. But she did not persecute Herakles' mother in any way... Just the son that Zeus clearly favoritized. And it becomes VERY obvious Hera's jealousy is not just related to a case of "cheating" in the case of Leto. Hera persecuted Leto for bearing Zeus' children and being deemed more beautiful than her by Zeus... When the myths are clear that Leto was Zeus companion (and possible wife) BEFORE Hera married Zeus. Before this whole story became another one of Zeus' cheating cases, this was a tale of Hera, unmarried to Zeus yet, simply being jealous of Leto being deemed more beautiful than her.

So this was all quite well established... But what about Athena, then, you ask?

Athena is also vain. I am sorry to announce it to you, but all the goddesses of Ancient Greeks have a flaw in myths (not in religion though, in religion all the goddesses are perfect and benevolent, but in legends and texts they are human-like with flaws and vices), and Athena's personal vice is vanity. The whole Arachne myth has sometimes been interpreted as a manifestation of Athena's personal pettiness, as in she cannot stand that someone is better than her at weaving. (It is a bit complicated since as I said before the legend of Arachne is purely Roman not Greek but I also told you I was going to mix Roman and Greek today so you have been warned). Even outside of the legend of Arachne, there is the legend of the flute - how Athena invented the first flute, but then cast it away and cursed it because when she played it, she looked ugly and people mocked her. This is probably the most famous legend about her vanity. And as I posted a long time ago - while this version of Medusa's legend was mostly lost to time because we lack the text, and it was preserved in scholia, we know that by Classical Greece the legend of Athena turning Medusa into a monster was quite popular... but it was all about Medusa being more beautiful than Athena, hence her being turned into a monster.

There's also a legend of a Meropis turned into an owl for mocking Athena's eye-color...

Anyway! Conclusion, it makes sense in the wider scope of Greco-Roman mythology to have these three goddesses be the one to fall for Eris' scheme, because they are the three most vain Olympian goddesses. Now it would have been weird if the candidates would have been, I don't know... Demeter or Hestia. These goddesses are not renowned for any vanity. But Athena? Yeah, makes sense.

EDIT: @teamrocketsfatknockers made a quite important point in a reblog and so I will add a point to my article.

I will insist that all I present to you above is from an "in-universe" point of view and a literal reading of the story. We are here talking of "humanized characterization" for the goddesses, and from a purely narrative, fictional point of view. That was my angle of attack: Why would Athena be considered "vain" in-story when we typically deem an "asexual virgin who hates romance and is more into war and high-intellects" as someone someone not much into superficiality or appearances.

But as I repeatedly said before, each myth has at least three levels of interpretation and three meaning warped in one. A religious meaning (though the one in the Judgement of Paris is... unknown to me so far), a literal meaning (as in we have a story, with characters, and this is a fiction) and a metaphorical or philosophical meaning. So I need to highlight that the myth of the Judgement of Paris can be read in a philosophical way as such. Why are these three goddesses searching for the Golden Apple aimed at the "fairest of them all"? Because all three of them embody the most attractive and seductive concepts a Greek man can ever hope for ; they are all three the ideals of Ancient Greek mindset and society. As such Paris' choice and the goddess' quarrels isn't about just satisfying the petty vanity of superficial divas anymore - it becomes a deep debate about which ideal, which dream is the most desirable for a Greek hero, and by extension for a Greek man. Hera is royalty, supremacy, political power and domination ; Athena is peace and wisdom, heroism and cleverness ; Aphrodite is romance, love, beauty and sexuality. And this all reflects within their gifts to Paris - which are in fact extension of what the goddesses themselves embody and represent.

You could sum it up as: Do you want to be a king, a hero or a lover? What would reward you most in life, a crown, a sword or a wife? What allures to you more, power, glory or romance?

Again, that's the beauty of the Greeks myths - and of all myths in the world. They depict simultaneously the gods as the pettiest more vicious selfish and flawed persons you ever met, basically warped caricatures of humanity... and as deep, profound, essential principles of human nature and human society, whose every interaction with mortals causes philosophical debates, ideological questioning and existential crisis.

[pelideswhore]

If the apple of discord was thrown down at the wedding feast of Peleus and Thetis, how did Achilles, their son, fight in the Trojan war? The timeline does not make sense to me unless you just chalk that up to the timing of the Eternal, Deathless Gods but mortals are involved. Like Paris is presumably asked right after the wedding to judge who gets the apple then he picks Aphrodite who has promised him the most beautiful woman. Does she like wait to find out who that is and that causes the delay? The story seems to go that she promises Helen, they kidnap Helen and then the war begins so like that’s a year tops in my mind but how would that give Achilles time to become the teenager he is in the war? Please help. If there is a definitive answer excellent but I also just want theories.

i really love love love this question, cus i’ve thought about it a lot, especially because i consider Paris and Achilles to be around the same age, which, as you said, would make no sense.

sadly, i don’t have a definitive answer, but i do have a theory. it’s quite long though so buckle up.

As you probably know, Aphrodite, Hera and Athena asked Zeus to solve the issue before resorting to Paris. Zeus couldn’t answer and by the timeline of the Gods, many mortal years had passed so Paris would have been born, sent away from the palace and had enough time to grow up at this point. Ares suggests him, the goddesses ask and Paris gets bribed. But he doesn’t take Helen straight away, because he’s still a goatherd at this point.

Before I finish with that, let’s get back to Achilles. One would probably assume that within the first year of Thetis’ and Peleus’ marriage, he was already born, but that’s actually not true. The couple had six sons before Achilles, but they all passed away somehow (which, i like to think, is the reason Thetis is so protective). That means, even if they all died on Day 1 of their life and Thetis conceived the very same day: 9 months x 6 = 54 months aka. 4,5 years. That’s at least 4 and a half years before Achilles was born, but I think I can safely assume it took a little longer. Let’s say 6 years (which btw is still unrealistic and would probably be horrible for Thetis’ health but I digress).

So now, Achilles is born, stuff happens: Achilles meets Phoenix and Patroclus, he gets sent to Chiron, and eventually Scyros etc. Let’s say he’s 17 when that happens. Still a teen, but old enough to get Deidamia pregnant. Realistically, Thetis would only send him away when the threat of the war is imminent, so Helen’s kidnapping happens when Achilles is 17. I tend to say Helen was around 24, Paris was maybe 21. I believe however that the Judgement of Paris happened a couple years before.

Because, consider, Paris picks Aphrodite as a goatherd, but he kidnaps Helen as a prince. So somewhere in between, Cassandra must've found him and brought him back. He then had to get used to royal life, but, more importantly, all the ships had to be ready to go to Sparta. It could've happened in a couple of days, but a couple of years isn't unrealistic either, and it fits the timeline better.

It's a bit all over the place, so here's summary:

0 years: Peleus' and Thetis' wedding, Golden Apple incident (Paris/Achilles not born)

2 years: Paris is born and abandoned.

6 years: Achilles is born.

19 years: The Judgement of Paris happens, Paris is still a goatherd.

23 years: Paris kidnaps Helen, start of the war, Achilles is aged 17

The only time ‘divine timing’ really plays a role is between the wedding the Judgement of Paris. In divine timing 19 years is nothing, just enough time for Zeus and Ares to get involved. Paris would’ve probably already held one or two bullfights at the age of 17 when he is chosen to judge between the goddesses and from then on everything runs pretty smoothly, bearing in mind the 4 years between Aphrodite promising Helen to him and Paris actually kidnapping Helen.

sorry it took so long to post this, had to get my thoughts in check then type it up :D

[red-moon-at-night]

The Heart wants what it wants.

[littlesparklight]

I'm pissy and pedantic and joyless so.

Things that will get you/Paris and possibly others, too, (still!) in the Judgement very, very dead:

-Choosing one goddess above the other two. (What's that you say? That's what the whole Judgement is about? Well, bully for the judge, then.)

-Eating the apple/cutting it up in three pieces to give to each goddess.

-Naming some other divinity not present nor included among the three standing in front of you as the winner of the apple.

-Refusing the oh so generously offered divine gifts. (What's that, you say? All three of them offered gifts? One of the "gifts" is married and you found this out and would now like to back out? Well, bully for the judge, then.)

-Refuse to do the Judgement by deferring to someone else. (You will simply be forced to do it anyway; this might or might not get you dead unless you keep refusing.)

-Giving the apple to your significant other/Oenone.

May I introduce you to Andromeda, whose mother famously declared her more beautiful than the Nereids?

Side, who while no one else declares her as beautiful as the goddesses, does so herself (against Hera)?

Psyche, who other mortals decided was surely a new/mortal Aphrodite and worshipped her as such?

Congrats on getting your significant other/Oenone dead or tortured by various methods, possibly with you/Paris dead, possibly left alive because you made someone else the target of divine wrath.

[zaireetoo-draws]

Judgement of Paris

[overlysarcasticpolls]

The Judgement of Tumblr

You have yet again been handed a golden apple and tasked with giving it to the fairest of the Goddesses on Mount Olympus.

Featuring the some of the more popular "Secret 4th Options" I remember from the last time.

[Image Source]

[mythologyofthepoetandthemuse]

Hermes with the apple of Eris (discord), from the Tales of the Greeks and Trojans, illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, 1963.

[mer-acle]

Soooo

Judgement of Paris, but make it a good old fashioned singoff

To Choose your fighter by Ava Max bc I can

This was less of a pain to edit than I thought but still pretty long haha. Also why do all of the goddesses look amazing in pink?? Esp Athena girl slay I didn't know that was your color!

Oh also this is my mythology Athena design for once even though the epic goddesses so totally would do this too.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

José Bermejo Sobera (Spanish, 1879-1962) The Judgement of Paris, 1909 Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

[lastwave]

paris and helens parallels make me crazy actually.

so like. when you look at the judgement of paris, paris becomes less of a dick and more of an unwilling instrument. he was born with a prophecy that said he would doom troy. multiple assassination attempts on him as a Baby. but. you know. no one really wanted to. thats an infant. so he grew up and he eventually became a cattleman. and when the goddesses summon him there wasn't an option of saying No and no matter who he picked, he'd be angering two of the three most spiteful goddesses. he's tried so hard to avoid it but still ends up in the exact position the prophecy said he'd be in. at least by picking aphrodite he could Maybe win hera over into neutrality by "loving" his new wife.

juxtaposed w helen. who has ALSO been an unwilling instrument her whole life. repeatedly kidnapped. the subject of near wars. frankly, her situation before the oath of tyndareus mirrors that of penelopes, except these men have armies to back up their claims to violence. she doesn't even get to pick her husband. everyone says its her fault, its over her, but how? by being born? because a bunch of assholes will go to war over not being entitled to a woman?

theyve both been given parts by the gods they cannot refuse but play with reluctance.

paris cant afford to give up helen bc that would piss off aphrodite. it doesnt matter if he actually loves her or not. helen is not going to waste energy on trying to get out of a situation where she knows its pointless. (and, as far as her kidnappings go, beyond the divine intervention shes been treated really well. and not just for her beauty)

they can't love each other in the way their roles demand but they're also the only people who can understand the other.

[classic-art-favourites]

The Judgement of Paris by Walter Crane, 1909.