Paris, Son of Troy

JUST IMAGINE, YOU ARE NOT EVEN BORN YET BUT YOU ARE ALREADY FEARED. AND WHY? BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER HAD A DREAM AND SOMEONE INTERPRETED THAT IN SUCH A WAY IT REALLY DOESN’T MAKE YOU LOOK THAT GREAT. IN FACT, IT MAKES YOU PROBABLY THE MOST UNWANTED BABY EVER. IT WOULD PROBABLY MAKE YOUR PARENTS SERIOUSLY DOUBT YOUR WHOLE EXISTENCE AND CONSIDER TO GET RID OF YOU. EXCEPT THAT IS NOT AN OPTION. FATE CANNOT BE CHANGED AND SO YOU ARE DESTINED TO BECOME A CATALYST FOR ONE OF THE MOST DRAMATIC EVENTS IN HISTORY.

Sounds a bit overdramatic? Maybe. But then again, old Greek mythology was pretty dramatic. And still there is evidence that this little story really happened. A small story with huge consequences. A small story that changed the known world of that ancient time. And it all happened in a city, both factual and legendary, which was located in northwest Anatolia, southeast of the Dardanelles and besides Mount Ida. A city that is known by the name Troy.

King Priam had a number of wives. During his reign he fathered about 50 sons and many daughters. Among them was Hector, war hero and heir to the Trojan throne, and Cassandra, the tragic prophet who foresaw her own – and many others - dead and disaster due to the massive eruption and destruction of Thera. An event that many believed to be the fall of Atlantis. And one other son was Paris, born Alexandros.

While pregnant of Paris, Priam’s wife Hecuba had a dream of giving birth to a flaming torch. The seer Aesacus saw this as a foretelling of the downfall of the mighty city of Troy. He declared the child would be the ruin of his homeland and therefore should be killed right after being born. Both Priam and Hecuba were unable to kill the infant themselves and so a herdsman was ordered to move the child away and take his life. But him to was unable to hurt the innocent babe and left him exposed on Mount Ida, hoping he would perish there. But Paris survived, and, suckled by a she-bear, grew up to be a young man of outstanding beauty and intelligence.

Helen was the daughter of Leda, wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus. She grew up to be a girl of extreme beauty and since no one could for sure say who her father was, it was assumed she could only be the daughter of Zeus, Overlord of the Greek Pantheon. When it was time for Helen to marry, many kings and princes from around the world came to seek her hand. Eventually it was Agamemnon from Mycenae who claimed her. Not for himself but for his brother Menelaus, king of Mycenae. But as said before, fait cannot be changed and before Helen could marry her king, Paris from Troy came to visit Sparta on a diplomatic mission. Upon seeing the handsome Troyan prince, Helen fell in love and decided boldly to escape her supposed fate and went to troy with Paris. Little did she know because instead of escaping it, she followed what fate had planned all along.

And so it came to happen that Paris and Helen went to Troy and by doing so they decided upon the fate of this most fabled of all cities. Because the Mycenaean and the Spartans joined forces and followed them. For them it was a moment they had been waiting for. The two Greek forces had their mind set upon the enormous wealth of Troy and Helen’s ‘abduction’ was all the excuse they needed for a large scale attack. Together with his brother Hector, Paris defended his beloved city but they were not strong enough for the combined armies under the command of Agamemnon and Achilles. And so Troy fell, but on the final day of the battle the Thera, the isle of the Minotaur erupted in a massif explosion that sent tidal waves all over the Aegean Sea. Troy disappeared, and so did many other small kingdoms and states. And the few survivors fled westward, to a land laid out over 7 hills and started a small survivors colony which later would grow into the mightiest empire that ever ruled on Earth. And Helen? Her fate is a mystery with many accounts. –BM-

Roberto Chiovitti photographed model Paris in the character role of his namesake Paris of Troy, son of Priam, lover of Helen and catalyst to the destruction of Troy.

ROBERTO CHIOVITTI | BEAUTIFULMAG
PARIS | BEAUTIFULMAG

Comments

[Marc]

This guy is way more Hector than Paris.