CREATED BY: Greek mythology
FIRST APPEARANCE: 8th century BCE or earlier
AREAS OF INFLUENCE: The daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, Cassandra is blessed with a beauty so radiant that she attracts the attentions of a god. Apollo, determined to bed the fair maiden, gives her the gift of prophecy (over dinner, we like to imagine, at the hottest restaurant in Troy). When the girl rebuffs his advances, the offended deity places on her a brilliant curse: she would keep her ability to look into the future, but no one would ever believe her prognostications. Her name has come to describe any prophet of doom whose timely message is — with dire and unfortunate consequences — roundly disregarded.
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