Eris

The goddess of strife, daughter of Night, born without a father into a brood of grim powers — Toil, Famine, Sorrow, Battle, Murder, Lies, and Oath among them (Hes. *Theog.* 226–232). Hesiod elsewhere splits her in two: one Strife the wholesome rivalry that drives a man to work, the other the cruel Strife that breeds war (Hes. *WD* 11–26). Homer sets her on the battlefield beside Ares, small when she first rears up and then striding huge with her head in the sky (Hom. *Il.* 4.440–445). Her most notorious act needs no battlefield: uninvited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on Pelion, she throws among the goddesses a golden apple marked for the fairest, and the quarrel of Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite over it sets the Judgement of Paris — and the Trojan War — in motion (Apollod. *Bibl.* E.3.2).

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