53 Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom, wealth and skill in battle and finally, Aphrodite offered him love from the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta. Paris chose Aphrodite and so claimed the hand of Helen of Sparta, Aphrodite then made Helen fall in love with Paris and go with him to Troy, however she was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. When Paris Took Helen from Menelaus, it was a declaration of war and so the decade long siege of Troy and the Trojan war began which lead to the ultimate destruction of both Paris and his city of Troy.
In this tale the apple comes to represent vanity, for it was the desire of the of the three goddesses to be “the fairest one”, to assume that they were the most beautiful and so most deserving. This vanity spilled out into a war that engulfed both the gods and the mortal world, and cost many gods and mortals their lives. Finally, if Eris had been invited to the party, rather than cast out for being disruptive, then perhaps all of this could have been avoided in the first place
