The Golden Apple

Eris, goddess of strife, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis — the marriage that would produce Achilles. She came anyway, and threw a golden apple into the hall inscribed kallisti, 'to the fairest'. She then left, having done all the work required.

Hera, Athena and Aphrodite each claimed it. Zeus, sensibly, refused to judge and handed the decision to a Trojan prince, Paris, who was herding cattle on Mount Ida. Each goddess offered a bribe: Hera power over all Asia, Athena wisdom and victory in war, Aphrodite the most beautiful woman in the world.

He chose Aphrodite. The woman was Helen, and she was already married to the king of Sparta. Everything that follows — the abduction, the alliance of Greek kings, the thousand ships, ten years of siege, and the deaths of Hector, Achilles, Patroclus and Troy itself — proceeds from one act of pettiness at a wedding.

A separate set of golden apples grows in the garden of the Hesperides at the world's western edge, guarded by the dragon Ladon and by Atlas's daughters, and fetching them is the eleventh labour of Heracles. The two sets are distinct, though both function the same way: gold fruit that causes trouble.

Eris herself is the most efficient character in Greek myth. She appears for the length of one action, never fights anyone, and causes the largest war in the tradition. The apple is sometimes called the Apple of Discord for that reason, and 'apple of discord' still means the small object or slight around which a much larger quarrel organises itself.