Source Verification: Paris

Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.

What the Sources Attest

What was the Judgement of Paris?

At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the goddess Strife threw down a golden apple marked for the fairest, and Hera, Athena and Aphrodite each claimed it. Zeus sent the three to the Trojan prince Paris on Mount Ida to judge between them. Each offered a private bribe - kingship, victory in war, or the most beautiful woman alive - and Paris chose Aphrodite's offer, a decision that won him Helen and started the Trojan War.

Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 3.2

Why did Paris choose Aphrodite over Hera and Athena?

Apollodorus's Epitome gives Paris a straightforward reason: of the three bribes on offer, kingship, military victory, and the most beautiful woman alive, he wanted Helen more than power or glory. Homer's Iliad treats the choice itself as settled history and only alludes to it once, calling it a grievous folly that brought disaster on Paris's own people rather than explaining his reasoning in detail.

Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 3.2

Did Paris actually fight in the Trojan War?

Rarely, and not well by his own army's standards. Homer's Iliad shows him challenging the Greeks to single combat in Book 3, then retreating at the sight of Menelaus until his brother Hector shames him into fighting. Aphrodite rescues him mid-duel before Menelaus can kill him, and the Iliad gives him no other major combat scene, though later tradition credits him with killing Achilles.

Source: Homer, Iliad 3.340-382

Did Paris really kill Achilles?

According to Apollodorus's Epitome, yes: Paris shoots Achilles in the heel at the Scaean Gate with Apollo guiding the arrow. Homer's Iliad ends before Achilles's death and never narrates it, so this account, along with the detail of a vulnerable heel, comes entirely from later tradition rather than from Homer himself.

Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 5.3

How did Paris die?

Apollodorus's Epitome has the Greeks learn from the prophet Calchas that Troy cannot fall without the bow and poisoned arrows of Heracles, so Odysseus and Diomedes fetch their current owner, the archer Philoctetes, to the siege. Once cured of an old wound, Philoctetes shoots Paris with the same poisoned arrows, and the wound kills him not long before Troy itself falls.

Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 5.8

Where Accounts Differ

paris-death-philoctetes-arrow
judgement-of-paris-allusion-vs-full-narrative

Homer's Iliad never narrates the Judgement of Paris, Paris's abduction of Helen, or his own death; it alludes to the judgement only once, near the poem's end, and ends before either the death of Achilles or of Paris. The connected story of all three survives complete only in Apollodorus's much later Epitome.
Ancient tradition credits Sophocles with a lost tragedy dramatizing Philoctetes's killing of Paris; only Apollodorus's brief summary of the episode survives today, and this entry follows that summary rather than the lost play.

Sources

Primary sources

Apollodorus, Epitome 3.2
Apollodorus, Epitome 3.3
Homer, Iliad 3.38-57
Homer, Iliad 3.340-382
Apollodorus, Epitome 5.3
Apollodorus, Epitome 5.8