SERVILIA:  In this scene Cassius makes a reference to the Trojan War. According to Greek mythology, the Trojan War resulted from an argument among three goddesses—Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite—about which one was the most beautiful.

RALPH:  Zeus, king of the gods, has no desire to get in the middle of this particular argument, so he appoints Paris, a prince in the city of Troy, to act as judge.

SERVILIA:   As the story goes, Aphrodite offers Paris a bribe: If he declares her the most beautiful goddess, she will make the most beautiful woman on earth, Helen of Sparta, fall in love with him.

RALPH:  Sure enough, Paris declares Aphrodite the most beautiful and then she fulfills her part of the deal. Paris takes his new lover, Helen, and sails back to Troy.

SERVILIA:  But there’s one tiny problem. Helen is already married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Menelaus’ big brother, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, rallies the other Greek cities to their cause and sails across the Aegean to attack Troy and bring Helen back to Sparta.

RALPH:  Which is why Helen is referred to as having a face that launched a thousand ships.

SERVILIA:  So the Greeks lay siege to Troy, but aren’t able to breach the walls of the city for 10 years. Then they come up with an ingenious scheme.

RALPH:  They build a huge wooden horse, the famous Trojan Horse, and hide a company of their best fighters inside it. They leave the horse outside the city walls and sail away as if they had given up the siege.

SERVILIA:  The Trojans, elated that the war is finally over, bring the horse into the city and begin to drink in celebration. That night, the Greek fighters emerge from the horse and sack the city.

RALPH:  Scenes from the war are depicted on hundreds, if not thousands, of painted vases, and the war and its aftermath have provided material for numerous plays and other literature down through the centuries.

SERVILIA:  So here, Cassius makes reference to it by suggesting that he saved Caesar from the rough waters just as Aeneas, one of the defeated Trojans, saved his father from the sacking of Troy.