CASSANDRA, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF PRIAM'S DAUGHTERS A Tale of Troy Cassandra was the Trojan princess offered the ability to see the future by the god Apollo in exchange for agreeing to have sex with him. When she reneged on the promised sex, he added the curse that her prophecies - all accurate - would never be believed, condemning her to a life of frustration made all the greater by the fact that she lived through the Trojan War, and that all her desperate efforts to warn her loved ones and her city of impending disaster would be in vain. The novel begins when Cassandra - here portrayed as a beautiful and profoundly sensitive young woman - is about to go into the homecoming dinner offered by Clytemnestra, the wife of King Agamemnon, who won Cassandra in the lottery of Trojan women after the fall of Troy. Her prophetic powers tell her that murder awaits both him and her at the hands of Clytemnestra and her lover. She has tried to warn Agamemnon, but of course was not believed. Unsure whether those who descend to the underworld (as she knows she very soon will do) retain any memory, she mentally reviews one last time the whole rich tapestry of the Trojan War as witnessed by her - the essence of the novel - before going to her fate with the firm step of a Trojan princess and of - in Homer's words - "the most beautiful of Priam's daughters".
Author: Thomas Ochiltree Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform Published: 10/30/2013 Pages: 156 Binding Type: Paperback Weight: 0.48lbs Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.33d ISBN: 9781492980827
About the Author Thomas Ochiltree (pronounced OH-kul-tree) was born in New York but grew up in London and studied in the U.S. (Harvard Class of '70). He is a retired Foreign Service Officer who served in many countries during his 22 years as a U.S. diplomat. His longstanding interest in the classics has led him to read over the years in the original Latin and Greek some three fourths of surviving classical literature. He is also the author of Death Waltz in Vienna, a combined suspense and romance novel set in glittering Vienna in the years before World War I. He does not have a Facebook page or Twitter account, but would be glad to receive and respond to any reader comments at ochiltreeth@yahoo.com
