Other Tragedies
Despite his skill and general sneakiness, Zeus did not always end up with the women he set out to seduce. One of these women was the sea nymph Thetis, and as soon as Zeus saw her he knew he simply had to have her. Zeus' plans were proceeding apace when Prometheus the Titan told him that this particular romantic entanglement wasn't a good idea. Zeus demanded to know why. Prometheus didn't particularly care for Zeus' tone and had just recently been rescued by Herakles from the torture imposed on him for giving fire to the mortals, so he decided to let Zeus stew in his own juices for a while. Eventually Zeus' demands turned to threats, which only made Prometheus even more obdurate. After all, if he could endure an eagle pecking out his liver for a few centuries, what else could Zeus do to him? Finally realizing he was getting nowhere with threats, Zeus tried offering various rewards to Prometheus, at which point the Titan revealed what his foresight allowed him to see. Prometheus told Zeus that if Thetis ever coupled with a man she would conceive a son who would be far greater than his father. This was a particularly shocking bit of news for Zeus. The last time the king of the gods had a son greater than himself was when Kronos had Zeus, and Zeus ended up deposing and imprisoning his father. The potential for disaster was just too high, so Zeus immediately ceased all his plans to bed Thetis.
Of course, this was only half a solution. Zeus had to be careful that none of the other gods turned their attentions to Thetis either. His brother, Poseidon, had also expressed an interest in Thetis, and any fully immortal child of Thetis would be a potential threat to Zeus' sovereignty. At this point Prometheus brought Peleus to Zeus' attention. Peleus was a mortal hero and one of the Argonauts. He was not great enough to have his own legends, but at least he wasn't a nobody. He was also fairly pious, and this deserved some kind of reward. Most importantly, Prometheus was able to see that Peleus had just the right combination of characteristics to be attractive to Thetis. Thus the plan was laid, the happy couple introduced, and the wedding followed soon after.
The wedding of Peleus and Thetis was the social event of the century. The guest list on the groom's side included just about every Greek hero alive at the time, and virtually all the gods were in attendance on the bride's side. This was a turning point in Greek myth, since it was the last time the gods and mortals really got down and partied together. After this, the gods would still use mortals as their playthings, but the relationship would be more distant.
As mentioned earlier, virtually all the gods were in attendance. In this case "virtually" means everyone except Eris, the goddess of discord. Since this was supposed to be a happy day no one wanted to invite a woman who brought conflict with her everywhere she went. Of course, since this was the biggest party in many years it was impossible to keep her from finding out about it and feeling snubbed. Outraged at her exclusion, Eris concocted a plan to bring as much discord as possible to this wedding that she apparently wasn't good enough to be invited to.
When the festivities were in full swing Eris entered the chamber unseen and threw a golden apple inscribed with the words "For the Most Beautiful" into the midst of the crowd. This immediately had the desired effect. Every woman in the room, mortal or immortal, wanted the apple for herself. The three major contenders, however, were Hera, Aphrodite, and Athene. Given these three highly vengeful competitors, every other woman present judiciously decided to keep quiet on the matter. These three turned to Zeus, the supreme arbiter of the heavens, to decide the matter fairly. Knowing that this was a no-win situation Zeus declined the honor, citing the fact that one of the contestants was his wife and another was his favorite daughter. Then Zeus engaged in a time-honored Olympian tradition when faced with difficulties. He decided to pass this problem along to some poor mortal.
The mortal Zeus chose to serve as judge in this contest was Paris, the son of king Priam of Troy and the most beautiful of all mortal men. This qualified him as an expert on the subject of beauty. At this time Paris didn't realize that he was the son of a king. He just thought of himself as a humble shepherd. The reason for this was that when Priam's wife, Hekabe, was pregnant for the second time she had a dream that she gave birth to a flaming torch. While this sounds painful, what happened next was even worse. The torch spread its flame until it burned the entire city of Troy to the ground. Being justifiably disturbed by such a vision Hekabe sought the advice of Ęsakos, Priam's son by a previous marriage and an interpreter of dreams. He told her that the child she was carrying was fated to be the destroyer of Troy and, since Ęsakos was none too pleased about being displaced in his father's affections by this new wife and her kids, he recommended that the child be exposed. Thus, in an attempt to cheat fate, after Hekabe gave birth she and Priam arranged to have the child, who they named Paris, exposed on the side of Mount Ida where the wild beasts would presumably devour him.
This thankless task fell to Agelaos, a servant at the court of Troy. He performed his duty faithfully, but fate would not be cheated so easily. Unfortunately for Priam, Hekabe, Troy, and most of the rest of the Greek world, Paris was actually suckled by one those wild beasts, namely a bear. When Agelaos returned to the site five days later to make sure of his work, he found the infant Paris just as fat and happy as when he had abandoned him. Perhaps even more so since he now had the mystic strength of a bear inside him. The gods were obviously at work here and Agelaos knew that if he interfered further he would place himself in danger of divine retribution, but bringing this news back to Priam and Hekabe would also place him in danger. To avoid these twin risks he took the infant Paris and raised him as his own at his country estate where Paris grew to manhood tending sheep.
As the son of such noble parents Paris had the steel will and great strength common among the heroes of the day and was regarded with awe by the other shepherds. He used these attributes to fight off robbers and defend the flocks, earning himself the nickname "Alexandros" ("helper of man"). With his incredible good looks and nearly inexhaustible stamina he was also regarded with awe by the shepherdesses as well, though their nickname for him has been lost to history. One of the sure signs of romantic success in those days was being chosen by an immortal as a lover, and Alexandros achieved this after catching the eye of the nymph Onone, a pastoral immortal with nonetheless very refined tastes.
It was to this humble shepherd Alexandros that a number of the heavenly host appeared while he was tending his flocks by night. The divinities that visited him were the contestants Hera, Aphrodite, and Athene, as well as Hermes the Heavenly Herald who was there to explain the nature of the contest to Alexandros. Perhaps because of his exalted status with the shepherds Alexandros just accepted this as an accolade due to him for his beauty. It never occurred to him that this might be a really bad idea.
Goddesses are used to getting their own way in things and very often they aren't too scrupulous about how they get it. Given this time-honored tradition, the concept of "fair play" never even entered into the minds of any of the contestants in the contest for the Apple of Discord. While approaching Alexandros to display her endowments, each of the goddesses secretly offered him a bribe. Hera, the queen of heaven, went first and told Paris that if he chose her she would make him the ruler of all of Asia (which to the Hellenes of the time consisted of the Near East). Athene, the warrior goddess, went next and offered to make Paris the greatest warrior in the world. Finally Aphrodite, goddess of love and carnal pleasures, approached Paris. She had overheard Hera and Athene's bribes, so she pointed out that being a king or a mighty warrior was an incredibly dangerous occupation, but that her gift would be something which could not fail to be pleasant. Namely the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.
While not exactly a coward, Alexandros didn't have the same brutal bloodlust as most of the other heroes of the time. To compensate for this, he was much more strongly influenced by lusts of another kind. Because of this the choice between the goddesses was very easy for Paris. He chose to bestow the Golden Apple upon Aphrodite, gaining her eternal gratitude but also earning the enmity of the other two divinities. This two-for-one deal would ultimately be Paris' undoing.