Cassandra was a Trojan priestess of Apollo and a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba.
Biography[]
Cassandra was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba and the sister of 18 siblings, including her twin Helenus. The sun god Apollo admired her for her beauty and gifted her with the ability to see the future, but Cassandra refused the god, causing Apollo to curse Cassandra by ensuring that nobody would believe her prophecies. Cassandra predicted that Paris of Troy's abduction of Helen of Sparta would lead to the Trojan War, and an angry Cassandra snatched away Helen's veil and tore at her hair on her arrival, blaming her for Troy's impending doom. She also foresaw the Trojan Horse stratagem, Agamemnon's death, the murder of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra by Electra and Orestes, and the escape of Aeneas to Italy. Her suitors Coroebus and Othronus were slain during the war, and, on the fall of Troy in 1183 BC, she was raped by Ajax the Lesser in the temple of Athena. Cassandra prayed for the gods to avenge her dishonor, and Ajax died in a shipwreck as he left the city. Agamemnon took Cassandra as a concubine, but both Agamemnon and Cassandra were murdered by Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus on their return to Mycenae.