Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

While Hecuba, wife of Priam, was pregnant, she dreamed she gave birth to a firebrand that burned Troy. Seers (Aesacus in some lists, or others) declared that the child would be the ruin of his country and must be exposed. When the boy was born, Priam gave him to a servant (Agelaus) to expose on Mount Ida. The infant was suckled by a bear for several days; Agelaus, finding him still alive, took him home and raised him as his own, naming him Paris. As a youth Paris was strong and fair; he defended the herds and earned the byname Alexander (“defender of men”). Later, when Priam held funeral games for the child long thought dead, Paris entered as a herdsman-competitor and defeated his royal brothers. His foster-father’s tokens (or Cassandra’s recognition, or the servant’s confession) revealed his identity. Priam received him back into the house—despite the old dream—and so the firebrand was brought inside the walls. This birth-and-return story is the classical background to the Idaean judge of the goddesses: the exposed prince living among shepherds is precisely the mortal the *Cypria* needs for the Judgment. Euripides’ lost *Alexander* dramatized the games and recognition. The episode is separable from the Judgment itself and from the later voyage to Sparta; it explains how Paris stands between herdsman’s life and Priam’s court when Aphrodite’s promise comes due.