The Myth About

Cassandra
In the eyes of Aeschylus
Aechylus
• An ancient Greek author of Greek tragedy, and is often
described as the father of tragedy. Academics' knowledge of
the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier
Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from
reading his surviving plays.
• He wrote up to 90 plays, winning with half of them at the
great Athenian festivals of Greek drama. Perhaps his most
famous work is Prometheus Bound which tells the myth of the
Titan punished by Zeus for giving humanity the gift of fire.
• His version of Agamemnon’s tragedy was the main source of
our take on the myth of Cassandra
Cassandra
• She is the daughter of King
Priam, the last king of Troy, and
his wife Hecuba. In Homer’s
Iliad, she is the most beautiful of
Priam’s daughters but not a
prophetess.
• She is bestowed with the gift to
see the future without being
able to change it, as she is not
able to make the others believe
her.
Apollo
• Apollo is of the Olympian deities in
classical Greek and Roman religion and
Greek and Roman mythology. The
national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo
has been recognized as a god of archery,
music and dance, truth and prophecy,
healing and diseases, the Sun and light,
poetry, and more.
• Because of Cassandra’s excessive
beauty, she attracted the attention of
Apollo, the Greek deity of prophecy.
Their
Agreement
• The deity promised her the
power of prophecy if she
would comply with his
desires. Cassandra accepted
the proposal, received the
gift, and then refused the
god her favors.
• Angered by her betrayal,
Apollo did not deprive
Cassandra of his gift of
foresightedness and
fortune-telling, but he
cursed her by making her
prophecies of no use as
nobody believed them.
• She accurately predicted such events
as the fall of Troy and the death but
her warnings went unheeded.
• She was even labelled by the people
of troy as a liar and a madwoman.
• Though she had a vision of the bloody
Trojan Wars, which she delivered to
her people, and though she tried to
warn them of the Trojan Horse, the
people insisted that she was mad and
lying.
 Cassandra In the
Trojan War
• During the Trojan War, Cassandra was
raped near Athena’s alter. The latter, in
revenge, for desecrating her temple,
sent a storm that destroyed most of
the Greek ships on their way home.
• Cassandra was to be taken, after the
fall of Troy, as King Agamemnon of
Mycenae’s captive and concubine, only
to realize that his castle would be the
site of her death, together with that of
the King.
 • She tried to warn the king that his wife,
Clytemnestra, would kill them both, but
Cassandr the king’s confidence in his wife’s loyalty
prevented him from seeing the reality.

a’s Thus, Cassandra’s prophecy and warning

went in vain as usual.

Demise • The king could not see that his wife had
taken a lover after his departure to war.
Now seeing that the queen was so
resolved on killing her, Cassandra
endured all the pain of seeing all her
prophecies come true without being able
to do anything to change her fate.
 Cassandra
Complex
• In 1949, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884-
1962) coined the term ‘the Cassandra Syndrome’, also known
as ‘the Cassandra Complex’ which has been in use since then.
• As a psychological concept, the Cassandra Complex refers to
similar situations that the mythical character experienced.
This occurs when a person predicts or expects things and
expresses concerns and warnings in advance and is not
believed by others.
• In psychology, the term also refers to individuals who suffer
from emotional pain and trauma and when they attempt to
share the causes of their pain with others, they are
disbelieved and their justifications are dismissed as illusions.
Thank you!
-Group 4
References
Taplin, Oliver and Podlecki, Anthony J.. "Aeschylus". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Feb. 2019,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aeschylus-Greek-dramatist. Accessed 2 June 2021.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Cassandra". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Feb.
2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cassandra-Greek-mythology. Accessed 2 June
2021.
Ibrahim Ismael, Zaid & Jassim, Shaima. (2020). Cassandra: The Greek Myth and Its
Representation in Modern Literature and Culture.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337925999_Cassandra_The_Greek_Myth_and_
Its_Representation_in_Modern_Literature_and_Culture. Accessed 2 June 2021.