Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca. Homer

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CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      ABOUT TROY AND THE JOURNEY OF PARIS TO GREECE

      On the northern shore of Asia Minor there lies a plateau watered by many small rivers and surrounded on all sides by mountains, only on the north it slopes gently to the sea. On this plateau, between the Simois and Scamandros rivers, in the oldest times there stood a very rich and powerful city, whose name was Troy. It was the capital of a large and fertile district, known as the Troad.

      There, about 1200 B.C., reigned a king by the name of Priam, possessed of great power and boundless wealth. He had many sons and daughters. It was said, indeed, that he had fifty sons who were all married and living in their own homes, which they had built by the king's wish around the royal palace.

      They were all handsome and heroic young men. One of the youngest, Paris, also named Alexandros, surpassed the others in beauty. He was a restless youth and not fond of his home, as were the others. He had set his heart on travelling and seeing strange countries and cities. King Priam was extremely fond of his large family, and took pride in having all his children about him, so that at first he was greatly opposed to the wishes of Paris.

      But the youth was so persistent and unhappy that the king at last consented to let him go. Without delay, Paris called together a few friends with tastes as adventurous as his own. They embarked in a new ship well provided with all that travellers need, and set sail for the famous land on the shores of the Ægean Sea, of which they had heard so many wonderful things, and which was called Hellas.

      Nearly in the middle of the plain which forms the southern part of Hellas was the city of Sparta. It was on the river Eurotas, and was the capital of a large district called Lacedæmon, and it was to this city that Paris came.

      Now, there was a mysterious reason for this strange desire of Paris—his passionate longing to travel. In his early youth, while he was still minding his herds on the rich pastures of Mount Ida, he received a visit from the three greatest goddesses of Olympos.

      Hera, the queen of Heaven and consort of Zeus—Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and Zeus's favorite daughter—and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, had a dispute among themselves.

      Each thought herself the most beautiful of the three, and they would have come to high words about it had not Athena proposed that they should ask the handsomest man in the world to settle the question. This happened to be the young royal shepherd, Paris. So the three goddesses floated down to the slope of Mount Ida on a snowy cloud and placed the question before him, each promising to reward him royally if he gave his verdict in her favor.

      Paris, as might have been expected, decided in favor of Aphrodite, who had promised him that the fairest woman living in the whole world should be his wife. This promise had to be kept, being given by a goddess, but it was the source of endless misfortune, for Paris had a young and lovely wife who was tenderly attached to him, while the fairest of living women—acknowledged as such by fame in all known countries—was Queen Helen of Sparta, herself the wife of another man.

      Her husband was one of the most renowned heroes of Hellas, King Menelaos, a son of Atreus and brother of the leader of the Greek chiefs, Agamemnon, King of Mycenæ. It was Aphrodite, then, who inspired Paris with an insane desire to forsake his parents, brothers, and wife. It was her secret guidance which led him across the seas and through the dangers lurking among the hundreds of islands of the Archipelagos straight to the land of Lacedæmon. This is the central of the three peninsulas in which the Peloponnesus ends, and might be called the middle finger of that large hand of which Arcadia is the palm.

      Paris landed, with all his companions, on the shores of Lacedæmon, where the people received him kindly and helped him on his journey to Sparta, where Menelaos and Helen gave him a cordial welcome.