The Mount Olympus marriage festival of Peleus and Thetis was interrupted by an uninvited guest, Eris, the Goddess of Strife and Discord. Eris got her revenge for not receiving a wedding invitation. She disrupted the festivities by tossing a golden apple inscribed “For the Fairest” amongst the assembled guests. It rolled across the floor and was claimed by Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. The resulting squabble over the apple, the enlistment of the mortal Paris as judge to choose the fairest and the subsequent chain of events including the abduction of Helen from Greece led to the start of the Trojan Wars and inspired some of the greatest literature and drama of Western civilization immortalized in the great classical epics the Illiad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid.
