Cassandra

Cassandra is a fair and noble young woman of Rhodes whose marriage becomes the prize in a conflict between family arrangements and Lysimachus’s love for her. Promised to Ormisdas, she is carried away on her wedding day by Lysimachus and his allies; after exile and a settlement between their families, she returns to Rhodes as Lysimachus’s wife.

Identity and Background

Cassandra is described as a fair and noble damsel of Rhodes. Her family had been negotiating her marriage to Ormisdas, the younger brother of Pasimondas. The match had repeatedly been interrupted by misfortunes, but Pasimondas’s preparations for his own wedding gave the families a reason to revive the negotiations and settle them.

The Marriage Arrangement

Pasimondas wanted his brother’s wedding to coincide with his own, so that the family would not have to undertake the expense and festivities a second time. He renewed the discussions with Cassandra’s parents, and the arrangement was concluded: Ormisdas was to marry Cassandra on the same day that Pasimondas married Iphigenia. Cassandra’s marriage was therefore incorporated into a double wedding planned by the two families.

Lysimachus and the Wedding-Day Abduction

Lysimachus loved Cassandra and had hoped that Ormisdas would not marry her, leaving him a chance to win her himself. When he learned that the renewed negotiations had succeeded, he concealed his distress and considered how to prevent the wedding. He judged that carrying Cassandra off was the only possible course, though he recognized the dishonor of such an act, particularly because of the public office he held. He ultimately let love outweigh that concern and recruited Cimon, then imprisoned with his companions, to help him.

During the wedding feast, Lysimachus and Cimon seized Cassandra and Iphigenia and entrusted them to their companions to take to the waiting ship. The brides wept and cried out amid the sudden uproar. The raiders escaped by sea and reached Crete, where they were welcomed by friends and relatives. There, Lysimachus and Cimon married the women they had carried away with great ceremony. The account records Cassandra’s distress during the seizure, but does not describe her response to Lysimachus in private or establish the terms of her consent.

Return and Narrative Significance

The abductions provoked prolonged conflict in Rhodes and Cyprus. Eventually, friends and relatives intervened to settle matters: Lysimachus returned to Rhodes with Cassandra after a period of exile, while Cimon returned to Cyprus with Iphigenia. The story says that both couples lived happily for a long time in their respective countries. Cassandra’s plot thus moves from a family-negotiated match with Ormisdas to an involuntary seizure, a marriage in Crete, and a socially repaired return with Lysimachus. Her brief but consequential role gives the wedding-day raid its second romantic strand and helps make the episode’s ending depend not only on escape, but also on reconciliation after exile.