Source Verification: The Judgement of 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 did the three goddesses each offer Paris in the Judgement of Paris?
Hera offered him kingship over all of Asia, Athena offered victory and wisdom in war, and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman alive. Paris chose Aphrodite's bribe over the other two, a decision that won him Helen and, with her, the ten-year war fought to win her back.
Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 3.2
Does Homer's Iliad tell the story of the Judgement of Paris directly?
No. The Iliad alludes to it only once, in a single passage near the poem's very end, calling Paris's choice a grievous folly that brought disaster on his own people. It never narrates the wedding, the golden apple, or the three goddesses' bribes, treating the whole episode as background its audience is assumed to already know.
Source: Homer, Iliad 24.25-30
What happened right after Paris chose Aphrodite?
Guided by the goddess, Paris sailed to Sparta and was welcomed there as a guest of King Menelaus for nine days. When Menelaus left for Crete to attend his grandfather's funeral, Paris persuaded Helen to leave with him for Troy, taking a share of the household's wealth and abandoning her young daughter Hermione.
Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 3.3
Where Accounts Differ
- judgement-of-paris-allusion-vs-full-narrative
- Homer's Iliad alludes to the Judgement of Paris only once, in a single late passage near the poem's end, and never narrates the judgement itself. The connected story - the wedding, the golden apple, the three bribes - survives complete only in Apollodorus's much later Epitome; the earlier epic Cypria, which likely told it first, survives only in fragmentary summaries, not as a citable connected text.
- This entry follows Apollodorus's Epitome for the mechanics of the judgement, including the specific bribes and the nine days Paris spent as Menelaus's guest, since no earlier complete source for those details exists.
Sources
- Apollodorus, Epitome 3.2
- Apollodorus, Epitome 3.3
- Homer, Iliad 24.25-30
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)