Note 688 — Chapter XV · LEGEND OF TROY.
Reading edition
This was the motive assigned to Zeus by the old epic poem, the Cyprian Verses (Frag. 1. Düntz. p. 12; ap. Schol. ad Iliad. i. 4):—
Ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Στασίνῳ τῷ τὰ Κύπρια πεποιηκότι εἰπόντι οὕτως·
Ἦν ὅτε μύρια φῦλα κατὰ χθόνα πλαζόμενα ... ... βαρυστέρνου πλάτος αἴης. Ζεὺς δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε, καὶ ἐν πυκιναῖς πραπίδεσσι Σύνθετο κουφίσαι ἀνθρώπων παμβώτορα γαῖαν, Ῥιπίσας πολέμου μεγάλην ἔριν Ἰλιακοῖο, Ὄφρα κενώσειεν θάνατῳ βάρος· οἱ δ᾽ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ Ἥρωες κτείνοντο, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.
The same motive is touched upon by Eurip. Orest, 1635; Helen. 38; and seriously maintained, as it seems, by Chrysippus, ap. Plutarch. Stoic. Rep. p. 1049: but the poets do not commonly go back farther than the passion of Paris for Helen (Theognis, 1232; Simonid. Amorg. Fragm. 6, 118).
The judgment of Paris was one of the scenes represented on the ancient chest of Kypselus at Olympia (Pausan. v. 19, 1).