Mount Ida
Mount Ida near Troy was the mountain from which the gods observed the Trojan War and where Paris judged the beauty contest between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.
The Story of Mount Ida
Rising above the plain of Troy, Mount Ida was where the shepherd-prince Paris was raised after his parents Priam and Hecuba abandoned him due to a prophecy that he would destroy Troy. On its slopes, Hermes brought Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite to Paris for his fateful judgement. He awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite, who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world — Helen of Sparta. During the war, Zeus sat on the peak of Ida to watch the fighting below, sometimes intervening, sometimes forbidding other gods from doing so. The mountain was also sacred to Cybele, the Anatolian mother goddess.
Symbols
Fun Fact
The Judgement of Paris on Mount Ida was considered the ultimate cause of the Trojan War — a single beauty contest that destroyed a civilisation.
Explore Further
Olympus
🏛 placeHome of the gods
The highest mountain in Greece and the mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods. Olympus was imagined as a paradise above the clouds.
Mount Parnassus
🏛 placeMountain of Apollo and the Muses
Mount Parnassus was the mountain above Delphi sacred to Apollo and the Muses — the symbolic home of poetry, music, and artistic inspiration.
Ida
🏛 placegeography
A name given to sacred mountains in both Crete and the Troad, sites of divine birth and the Judgment of Paris.
Mount Olympus
🏛 placedivine, throne
The highest mountain in Greece and mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods, whose snow-covered peak was believed to pierce the boundary between earth and heaven.
Mount Pelion
🏛 placemountain, Thessaly
A forested mountain in Thessaly, home of the wise Centaur Chiron and the site of the fateful wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
Mount Ossa
🏛 placemountain, Thessaly
A mountain in Thessaly that the Giants stacked beneath Pelion in their attempt to storm the heavens and overthrow the Olympian gods.
Pieria
🏛 placeSacred geography
The region at the foot of Mount Olympus sacred to the Muses, who were sometimes called the Pierides
Mount Ida
🏛 placeBirthplace cave of Zeus
Mount Ida was the highest peak in Crete, home to the cave where the infant Zeus was hidden from his father Kronos and raised in secret by nymphs and the Kouretes.
Helicon
🏛 placepoetry, inspiration
The Boeotian mountain sacred to the Muses and Apollo, home to the springs of Hippocrene and Aganippe whose waters granted poetic inspiration.
Colchis
🏛 placeLand of the Golden Fleece
Colchis was a kingdom at the eastern edge of the Greek world, on the shore of the Black Sea in modern Georgia, famous as the destination of Jason and the Argonauts.
Acrocorinth
🏛 placegeography
The towering citadel rock above Corinth, sacred to Aphrodite and site of her famous temple.
Pelion
🏛 placeGeography
A forested mountain in Thessaly, home of the centaur Chiron and the site where the Argo was built