In Greek mythology, Cassandra (also Kassandra or Alexandra) was a Trojan princess and priestess of Apollo, daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba. Apollo gave her the gift of true prophecy but cursed her so that her warnings would never be believed. She foresaw the fall of Troy and many later disasters; after the sack she was taken as Agamemnon's concubine and murdered with him at Mycenae by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. In modern usage her name marks someone whose accurate warnings of disaster go unheeded.
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I.Description and family
Cassandra was a daughter of Priam and Hecuba and sister of Hector, Paris, Helenus, Deiphobus, Polyxena, Creusa, Troilus and others. Homer calls her the fairest of Priam's daughters and a peer of golden Aphrodite. Later descriptions give her light or auburn hair and flashing eyes; Euripides has her wear a crown of laurels when prophesying.
She was a virgin priestess of Apollo. After Troy fell she became Agamemnon's pallake (concubine); some sources say she bore him twin sons, Teledamus and Pelops, who were later killed by Aegisthus.
II.Gift of prophecy
Cassandra could utter true prophecies but was cursed never to be believed. In the common account she promised herself to Apollo in exchange for the gift, then refused him; Aeschylus's Agamemnon has her confess that she consented to Loxias and broke her word. Hyginus says she fell asleep in Apollo's temple and refused his embrace, after which her true prophecies went unheeded. An alternate tradition has serpents lick the ears of Cassandra and her twin Helenus overnight in the temple, granting them prophetic power.
Her family and people treated her as a liar and madwoman; Priam is said to have locked her away under guard. One prophecy that was believed was the recognition of the exposed infant Paris as her abandoned brother.
III.Trojan War and the sack
Before the war Cassandra warned that if Paris brought Helen from Sparta, Troy would be destroyed; the warning was ignored. In the Iliad she announces Hector's death so the city can mourn as his body returns. Later sources credit her with warning against the Wooden Horse — Quintus of Smyrna has her seize an axe and torch to destroy it before the Trojans restrain her — and with foretelling Agamemnon's murder, her own death, Hecuba's fate, Odysseus's wanderings, and Aeneas's escape to found a new people in Italy.
During the sack she took sanctuary in Athena's temple and clung to the Palladium; Ajax the Lesser dragged her away and raped her, knocking the statue from its stand — an act of sacrilege that later brought Athena's vengeance on the returning Greeks. Cassandra then fell to Agamemnon as a prize of war.
IV.Death and reception
Brought to Mycenae (or Argolis), Cassandra was murdered with Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, or by Aegisthus, on their return. In Aeschylus's Agamemnon she remains outside the palace in prophetic frenzy, foresees the murders, and walks knowingly to her death; Clytemnestra claims the killing as revenge for the insult of a concubine. Traditions place her resting place at Amyclae or Mycenae; Pausanias records statues of her in the Peloponnese. Heinrich Schliemann once claimed Grave Circle A at Mycenae held her tomb, but the burials predate the traditional Trojan War by centuries.
She appears across Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus, Euripides, Seneca, Lycophron's Alexandra, and later literature and art. The rhetorical "Cassandra" figure — the disregarded prophet of doom — remains a lasting cultural motif.