ABSTRACT
Ovid gives a lively new twist to one of the most frequently treated stories in Classical literature, providing an intimate insight into the thoughts and feelings of two very famous lovers as they are on the point of bringing about one of the longest and deadliest wars in ancient myth. When Hecuba, the wife of Priam (king of Troy, in the region of Phrygia) was pregnant with Paris, she dreamed that she gave birth to a huge, flaming torch. A prophet said that this meant that Troy (also known as Ilium) would burn with the fire of Paris. Roman readers familiar with a famous episode in book 3 of Homer's Iliad would have particularly appreciated the absurdity of Paris' boasts at 353ff. At the start of that book the Greek and Trojan armies advance to do battle, and Paris steps out to challenge the best of the Greeks to fight with him.
