During the course of the Trojan War, which lasted 10 years, Paris’s courage was tested by Hector, his brother. Before the conflict Hector, leader of the Trojan forces, accused Paris of being deceitful, obsessed with women, and a coward. He taunted Paris and urged him to stand against Menelaus. He argued that this would be a contest in which the good looks of the wife-stealer would be of little use. Eventually Paris confronted Menelaus to prove how unfair Hector’s accusations had been. However, the contest was not a straightforward duel: when Menelaus was about to capture Paris, Aphrodite intervened and spirited him from the battlefield. Paris did not stay away from the conflict for long, however. In his epic the Iliad, Homer (c. ninth-eighth century BCE) describes how Paris returned to the fray later. He draws comparisons between Paris running to the battlefield and a horse galloping free across a plain. Hector witnessed this enthusiasm for war and praised his brother.
Although it was clear to some Trojans that Paris was responsible for inciting the war, he did not feel responsible. On occasion he justified his role in events leading up to the conflict. He asserted to Hector that a man is obliged to accept any gifts the gods give; Paris was adamant that he
Below: In the foreground of this painting by German artist Matthias Gerung (c. 1500—1568/1570), Paris judges which of the three goddesses, Athena, Hera, or Aphrodite, is the most attractive. The Trojan War rages behind them.
Had no choice but to pursue Helen and that she could not resist following him (in The Trojan Women by Euripides [c. 486-c. 406 BCE], Helen justified to Hecuba her departure from Sparta with the same explanation). Late in the war Helen rued her captivity in Troy and related to her husband her anguish at being surrounded by devastation, but throughout the conflict her attraction to Paris did not falter.
Although Paris was derided by Hector at times, he played a major role in the long war by avenging the death of his brother and killing Achilles, champion of the Achaeans. Before Hector died he warned Achilles that he would die at Paris’s hands. One version of the Achilles myth reports that the Greek hero had a vulnerable heel, the one place not protected by the magical powers of the Styx River into which his mother Thetis had dipped him as a child. Assisted by the god Apollo, Paris managed to fire an arrow that struck mighty Achilles at this vulnerable point, killing him.
Although Aphrodite protected Paris throughout the war, the Trojan prince did not survive the fall of Troy. Once the Trojan horse had been brought into the city and the Greeks rushed through the streets, Paris was hunted down to his father’s palace. One of Helen’s previous suitors, Philoctetes, who fought with the bow of Heracles, shot an arrow that mortally wounded Paris.
As Paris lay on his deathbed, he remembered his first wife, Oenone, who had the power to heal any wound from which he might suffer. He asked to be taken to her on Mount Ida. Oenone was still angry about being replaced by Helen, however. She refused to help Paris and sent him back to Troy. Later she felt remorseful and rushed to Troy to save him, but she was too late: Paris had died from the wound inflicted by Philoctetes. He did not live to witness the slaughter of his fellow Trojans or to see the walls of Troy catch fire and the great Phrygian city collapse.
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