This article offers a general overview of the Cassandra scene in Euripides’ Trojan Women. First it deals with the preparation of her appearance in the prologue and the parodos; it subsequently focuses on the sceneitself with an emphasis on its ritual aspects. Special emphasis is allotted to the rhythmic patterns shaping Cassandra’s song, as well as more broadly to the mode of her prophetic utterance, with its shift from song to recited verse. Finally, a novel reading of the political allusions of the scene is attempted. The paradoxical arguments deployed by Cassandra concerning Hector, Paris and the glory of the vanquished, as well as her intention to take vengeance on the Argives through her journey to Argos, can be regarded as alluding to the precarious rhetorical strategies used by political leaders urging the demos, that very same year, to unleash the Sicilian Expedition.
