by Katelyn Abbott
Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy and the twin sister of Helenus. Her brown hair had been kept in curls and she brown eyes and fair skin. She was very beautiful, intelligent, charming, desirable, elegant, friendly, and gentle, but she was considered to be insane. Cassandra was described as “the second most beautiful woman in the world” and her beauty was even compared to that of Aphrodite and Helen of Troy. Apollo ended up falling in love with her and he gave her many gifts including the gift of prophecy, but when she rejected him and scorned his love for her he turned this gift into a curse. She would be able to see the future and be correct in her predictions, but nobody would ever believe a word she said. This Trojan princess foresaw the events of the Trojan War where at the end of it she was abducted and brutally raped by Ajax the Lesser when she sought refuge in the temple of Athena. She was taken as a concubine by King Agamemnon of Mycenae and she was murdered along with him and their twin sons Pelops and Teledamus by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus shortly after their arrival in Mycenae.