Therefore, when Virgil, in the opening section of the Aeneid, cites the "judgment Paris gave" — the judicium Paridis, in Latin — as a reason for Juno's implacable hatred of the Trojans, his readers would have understood immediately this wonderfully succinct allusion, which helped explain why Juno, the queen of the gods, would be a formidable opponent throughout the epic poem. Paris's judgment, which concerned the awarding of a golden apple — the prize in a kind of divine beauty contest presided over by Paris, a son of Troy's King Priam and Queen Hecuba — led to the Trojan War and so to the downfall of Troy and, by extension, to Rome's founding.
The golden apple, with its inscription, "For the Fairest," was in itself a trifle, but it produced such far-reaching effects because it acted as a stimulus to the passions of humans and immortals alike. Angered because she had not been invited to a wedding, Eris, the goddess of discord, tossed the apple among the assembled guests, setting off a controversy among three goddesses who were present: Venus, the goddess of love; Juno, the queen of the gods; and Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, each of whom believed that the inscription on the apple could refer only to herself.
Paris, who had been appointed by Jupiter to pronounce judgment in the matter, awarded the apple to Venus, who in return for this favor promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, a reward that he, reputed to be the most handsome man in the world, valued more than those offered by Juno and Minerva — worldly power and victory in war, respectively. Juno took Paris's judgment as a personal insult that wounded her vanity and aggravated a deep-seated antagonism, for she knew that her favorite city, Carthage, was destined to be razed by Rome and its citizens sold into slavery.
