Cassandra’s Family Tree

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Family

• Hecuba(parent),Priam(parent),Deiphobus(sibling),Hector(sibling),Helenus(sibling),Paris(sibling)— Marriage

  Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of Troy, bore Hector, Paris, Cassandra, Deiphobus, and Helenus. Hecuba dreamed Paris would destroy Troy, but Priam welcomed him back.

• Agamemnon(spouse)— Consort

  After the fall of Troy, Agamemnon took the Trojan princess Cassandra as his captive concubine and brought her to Mycenae, where both were murdered by Clytemnestra.

Slain by

• Clytemnestra

  Clytemnestra killed the Trojan prophetess Cassandra alongside Agamemnon. Cassandra had foreseen her own murder but, cursed by Apollo, could convince no one to heed her warnings.

Associated with

• Agamemnon

  Cassandra foresaw Agamemnon's murder at Clytemnestra's hands and warned him during their voyage from Troy. In Aeschylus's Agamemnon, she delivers her prophecy at the palace gates before walking knowingly to her death.

• Ajax the Lesser

  Ajax the Lesser dragged Cassandra from Athena's sacred image during the sack of Troy and violated her in the goddess's temple. The sacrilege enraged Athena, who sent storms to destroy the Greek fleet on its return voyage.

• Apollo

  Apollo granted Cassandra the gift of prophecy to win her love. When she rejected him, he cursed her so that her true prophecies would never be believed, sealing Troy's doom.

• Helen of Troy

  Cassandra warned the Trojans against welcoming Helen, foreseeing that Paris's prize would bring fire and ruin to Troy. No one heeded the prophetess, and the war she predicted consumed her city.

• Paris

  Cassandra, Paris's sister and prophetess, warned that his return to Troy would bring the city's destruction. As with all her prophecies, no one believed her.

• Priam

  Priam, Cassandra's father, dismissed her prophecies throughout the war. When she warned him not to welcome Paris and Helen, not to trust the Trojan Horse, he ignored her each time — fulfilling Apollo's curse.

• Trojan Horse

  Cassandra warned the Trojans that the Trojan Horse concealed Greek warriors and would bring destruction. Cursed by Apollo never to be believed, her prophecy was ignored, and the horse was brought inside the gates.

• Trojan War

  Cassandra prophesied Troy's destruction throughout the Trojan War but was never believed, cursed by Apollo. She warned against the Wooden Horse in vain and was enslaved by Agamemnon after the city fell.