The Apple of Discord

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Possibly even a later plot device. The oldest surviving reference to this myth (two lines about a page into Book 24 of the Illiad) doesn't mention the setup story, just Paris humiliating two goddesses by preferring the bribe offered by the third, with no mention of the apple (or Eris for that matter). One assumes this was a story well known to the audience of the Illiad, or it wouldn't be that casual a reference, but with more than half a millennium for the details to have changed before there are any other sources, which conflict anyway, who knows what they thought the story was.

Athena's bribe was better because it subsumed the other two(with enough brains he could have all the power he wanted which would in turn get him all the beautiful women he wanted). However I wonder at someone who would think Aphrodite would not win an honest beauty contest. Just entering herself is cheating.