Kassandre, daughter of Priamos and Hekube, was tempted by Apollo, and deceived him. He promised to bestow upon her the gift of Prophecy, provided she would give him her maidenhead. Kassandre seemingly consented to this exchange; but no sooner had she obtained the gift of Prophecy than she laughed at the tempter, and broke her word with him. Apollo did not revenge himself by bereaving her of the gift he had indulged her, but by causing no credit to be given, by any person, to her predictions. She was considered as mad before the things she foretold were come to pass; and was not owned to be in her senses till after they were accomplished.
Servius relates the manner how these were rendered ineffectual: Apollo’s spittle produced this effect, which was so strong that Kassandre’s predictions could never obtain credit. The god was exasperated at the fair one for refusing what she had promised him; however, he concealed his resentment, and desired her to grant him a kiss at least. She indulged his request, upon which he spit in Kassandre’s mouth, and by that means the gift he had bestowed upon her became of no use.
Some relate another story. It is this: Helenos and Kassandre, who were twins, were carried in their infancy to the temple of Apollo, and were left there a whole night, either out of forgetfulness, or because it was the custom. The next day, when the infants were sought for, they were found with serpents twisted round their bodies and licking their ears. This action of the serpents endued both with the gift of Prophecy.
However this be, when the Greeks took the city of Troy, this prophetess fled for shelter into the temple of Athene, and there saved her life, but not her honour; for Aias son of Oileus forced her in the midst of the temple.
Kassandre, in the division of the plunder, fell to Agamemnon. He fell in love with her, if we may believe Euripides, and obtained her from the Greeks as a kind of gift; she was not disposed of by way of sortition, but was set apart in order to be presented to that lord, who made her his concubine. It is said that Klytaimnestre was jealous of it, and that this was one of the motives which prompted her to murder her husband. Kassandre was not spared, she being butchered at the same time; and two boys (twins), whom she had by Agamemnon, met with the same fate. Pausanias informs us that Kassandre, being got with child by Agamemnon, was delivered of twins, whom Aigisthos murdered on their father’s grave.
Hyginus should not have asserted that Oias, to revenge the death of his brother Palamedes, told Klytaimnestre a falsehood (in opposition to truth), that her husband was bringing her a rival from Troy, or rather a concubine, viz. Kassandre. This was not telling a falsehood. The words of Palamedes’ brother had a desired effect. Klytaimnestre, being informed that her husband was bringing Kassandre, resolved to get rid of them both, and accordingly did so. She owns in Euripides that the injury her husband had done her in sacrificing Iphigeneia would not have prompted her to murder him; but he was returned, said she, with an enthusiastic, frantic wench; “He had put her into my bed, and we were two wives under one roof.” Pindar’s thought is different: his two causes are the remembrance of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, and the fear of Agamemnon’s anger: his wife had led so dissolute a life that she did not think it possible either that her crime could be concealed, or that her husband would suffer her to go unpunished.
Kassandre was vastly beautiful, and had been sought for in marriage by powerful princes before the Fall of Troy.