The birth of Paris was preceded by formidable presage; for Hecuba dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove fatal to him.  Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair and symmetrical in person, and the special favorite of Aphrodite.

It was to this youth, in his solitary shepherd’s walk on Mount Ida, that the three goddesses, Here, Athene, and Aphrodite, were conducted, in order that he might determine the dispute respecting their comparative beauty, which had arisen at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis,—­a dispute brought about in pursuance of the arrangement, and in accomplishment of the deep-laid designs of Zeus.  For Zeus, remarking with pain the immoderate numbers of the then existing heroic race, pitied the earth for the overwhelming burden which she was compelled to bear, and determined to lighten it by exciting a destructive and long-continued war.  Paris awarded the palm of beauty to Aphrodite, who promised him in recompense the possession of Helen, wife of the Spartan Menelaus,—­the daughter of Zeus and the fairest of living women.  At the instance of Aphrodite, ships were built for him, and he embarked on the enterprise so fraught with eventual disaster to his native city, in spite of the menacing prophecies of his brother Helenus, and the always neglected warnings of Cassandra.

Paris, on arriving at Sparta, was hospitably entertained by Menelaus as well as by Castor and Pollux, and was enabled to present the rich gifts which he had brought to Helen.  Menelaus then departed to Crete, leaving Helen to entertain his Trojan guest—­a favorable moment, which was employed by Aphrodite to bring about the intrigue and the elopement.  Paris carried away with him both Helen and a large sum of money belonging to Menelaus, made a prosperous voyage to Troy, and arrived there safely with his prize on the third day.

Menelaus, informed by Iris in Crete of the perfidious return made by Paris for his hospitality, hastened home in grief and indignation to consult with his brother Agamemnon, as well as with the venerable Nestor, on the means of avenging the outrage.  They made known the event to the Greek chiefs around them, among whom they found universal sympathy; Nestor, Palamedes, and others went round to solicit aid in a contemplated attack of Troy, under the command of Agamemnon, to whom each chief promised both obedience and unwearied exertion until Helen should be recovered.  Ten years were spent in equipping the expedition.  The goddesses Here and Athene, incensed at the preference given by Paris to Aphrodite, and animated by steady attachment to Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, took an active part in the cause, and the horses of Here were fatigued with her repeated visits to the different parts of Greece.