*
Tyche is a daughter of Zeus, one of the many. It is her joy to decide on which mortals to bestow good fortune, heaping gifts from a cornucopia: her joy, too, to deprive others of everything good they have. Oft-times she changes her favourites, casting a lucky man into misery and raising an unfortunate to heights undreamed-of. She juggles a ball as she works, sometimes tossing it high, sometimes dropping it to the floor.
When that message came to Athens we thought Tyche had turned her random mood on us. Whether our fortunes were to rise or fall we did not know. But we knew chance was in the room at our side.
The missive invited Menestheus to Troy, to discuss the matters of high taxes and the abducted sister. Similar overtures had been sent to Nestor in Pylos and Menelaus in Sparta, we were told. The message fell on us like a stone into clear water. We could barely credit it. Priam had Greece groaning for relief and now he offered it. Menestheus saw a chance to end the discord and he snatched at it, of course.
How was he to know it was a trap?
Clever Priam, to play so on our hopes. And clever Paris, whose scheme it was, though we didn’t know it then. Clever, but foolish too. The Greeks had borne hunger. Their princes would not bear humiliation.