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The goddess of discord, Eris, was naturally not popular in Olympus, and when the gods gave a banquet they were apt to leave her out. Resenting this deeply, she determined to make trouble... into an important marriage celebration to which she was not invited she threw a golden a golden apple marked "For the Fairest." Of course all the goddesses wanted it. Zeus was asked to judge between Aphrodite, Hera, and Pallus Athena, but wisely refused. He told them that prince Paris was an excellent judge of beauty, and that they should go to him. He was not asked, however, to gaze at the radiant divinities and choose which seemed to him the fairest, but only to consider the bribes each offered and choose which seemed to him best worth taking. What men cared about most was set before him. Hera promised to make him Lord of Europe and Asia, Athena, that he would lead the Trojans to victory against the Greeks and lay Greece in ruins; Aphrodite, that the fairest woman in all the world should be his. He gave Aphrodite the apple and in doing so, set the stage for the Trojan War.
~ Edith Hamilton
from Mythology - Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
story originally from The Judgement of Paris which
is part of the play Trojan Woman by Euripides
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