Cassandra. Daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, Cassandra (also called Alexandra) is best known for her prophetic powers, although they are not mentioned by Homer. Instead, it is according to a later tradition that Apollo granted her these powers as a token of his love for her and that, when she refused him, he punished her by assuring that her predictions, while always true, would never be believed.
During the sack of Troy, Cassandra fled for safety to the temple of Athena (Pallas; Minerva). There, Ajax, the son of Oileus of Locris (also known as Ajax the Lesser to distinguish him from Ajax the son of Telemon), found her embracing a statue of the goddess. He dragged her by her hair from the temple and raped her. In expiation, Ajax’s people, the Locrians, had to send a yearly tribute of maidens to the temple as slaves.
After the fall of Troy, Cassandra was awarded to the Greek king, Agamemnon, as war booty, but on the journey to Mycenae (or after arriving there), both were murdered by Agamemnon’s wife, Clytem-nestra, and her lover Aegisthus.
A common image in archaic and classical art is that of Cassandra clutching at the statue of Athena or being dragged out of the temple by Ajax. Her prognostications were used as a literary device by a number of ancient authors, especially in tragedy and other writing, in which she vainly foretold numerous events, most notably the fall of Troy.


Classical Sources. Homer, Iliad 6.252,13.361-82, 24.699; Odyssey n.42iff. Aeschylus, Agamemnon. Pindar, Pythian Odes n.içff. Euripides, Trojan Women. Vagif Aeneid 2.245ff., 2-343, 3.183. Apollodorus, Biblioteca 3.12.5, E5.22-23. Seneca, Agamemnon. Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.16.6—7, 3.26.5, 10.26.3ff., 10.27.1. Hyginus, Tabulae 90, 108, n6, 117, 128, 193. Philostratus, Imagines 2.10.

See also Agamemnon; Trojan War.