Apple, or Quince?

That is the question with which the rather interesing Cu Sith Myth blog posed a couple of months back.

As the post shows, the source of the false information is none other than the Toronto Star, well known for its investigative journalism and war coverage in Ancient Greece. Or not.

Because, as anyone who has read the circle of stories that make up the entire war of Troy mythology (which is not just the Illiad and Fall of Troy, as many presume), there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the item Eris rolled into the wedding party at Olympus is an apple. A golden one, admittedly, but definitely apple.

Thats because it was one of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, as recorded by Colluthus in The Rape of Helen (38). The irony here is that the Garden belonged to Hera and the apples had originally been a wedding gift between Zeus and Hera from Gaia. Can you see the importance, that one golden apple lead to the union of the most powerful of the gods (in admittedly a relationship that Zeus often broke), whereas the apple Eris threw divided them as they took separate sides in the all embracing war that set out how the Greeks understood their gods and their own culture. One defined the order of the Gods, the other the affairs of man. It sounds implausible, but there is no way to overestimate the importance of the Trojan War in the Greek psyche. It defined how they thought about the difference between Greece and the barbarian states, the natures of the Gods, what it means to be valiant in battle and was constantly referred to, alluded and rewritten in poetry and speeches.

Uh, anyway, back to the point. Yeah, definitely apple. No debate at all.