Discordia- Roman GodDeity"Mad Discord"

Bloody Ribbons

When Aeneas descends to the Underworld in Virgil's Aeneid, the poet lists what waits at the gate: Grief and Disease, Old Age and Death. Among them stands Discordia, her hair bound in bloody ribbons. She belongs there. She is as old as dying.

Virgil calls her back in the war scenes of the Aeneid's second half: Discordia demens, mad Discord, striding among the combatants. Ennius placed her on the battlefield too, delighting in carnage. Where Mars fights and Bellona rages, Discordia walks behind them. She makes sure the killing does not stop.

The Golden Apple

She was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Every other god received a place. Discordia arrived anyway and threw a golden apple among the guests, inscribed with three words: To the Fairest.

Juno, Minerva, and Venus each claimed it. Jupiter refused to judge and sent them to Paris, a Trojan prince tending sheep on Mount Ida. Each goddess offered a bribe. Venus promised the most beautiful woman alive. Paris chose Venus, and Venus delivered Helen of Sparta.

Paris took Helen from her husband Menelaus. The Greeks came for her with a thousand ships. Troy burned. Aeneas fled the wreckage and sailed to Italy. His descendants built Rome. All of it, from a single apple thrown by the one goddess no one wanted at the feast.