Cassandra was the High Priestess of Troy, whom the First Doctor's future companion Katarina served as a handmaiden. She was the daughter of King Priam and the sister of Paris, Hector and Troilus.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
As High Priestess[[edit] | [edit source]]
For a time prior to the arrival of the Doctor's TARDIS, Cassandra had had nightmares of the future. A mean-spirited and vindictive sort, she nevertheless warned Priam and those associated with her that doom would come to Troy, the people of which had long failed to take her seriously. When Vicki Pallister, later called Cressida, emerged from the TARDIS, which the Trojans had taken to the city, Cassandra immediately accused her of practising witchcraft. She warned of the Trojan Horse, a plan put into action by the First Doctor, but to no avail. (TV: The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"])
Cassandra chose Katarina as her handmaiden as she predicted that she would die. (PROSE: Scribbles in Chalk [+]Loading...["Scribbles in Chalk (short story)"]) She instructed Katarina to stay with Vicki as she believed her to be a sorceress and did not trust her her lovesick brother, Troilus, which eventually led to Katarina helping the injured Steven back to the TARDIS and her accompanying the Doctor and he on their travels. (TV: The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"]) Katarina introduced herself as the handmaid to the High Priestess Cassandra when Steven regained consciousness. (TV: "The Nightmare Begins" [+]Part of The Daleks' Master Plan, Loading...{"namedep":"The Nightmare Begins (1)","1":"The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"})
After the fall of Troy[[edit] | [edit source]]
After the fall of Troy, in which her father and her brother Paris were killed, Cassandra became a slave of the Greek warlord Agamemnon. (TV: The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"])
In 1963, Susan Foreman recalled in her her diary that Cassandra was kicked to death for being able to see the future. (PROSE: Time and Relative [+]Loading...["Time and Relative (novel)"])
The City of the Saved[[edit] | [edit source]]
Cassandra was resurrected in the City of the Saved as a young woman. In AF 291, while on the Tube, Cassandra prophesied in painstaking detail the imminent Civil War. (PROSE: Prologue to Of the City of the Saved... [+]Loading...["Prologue to Of the City of the Saved... (short story)"])
In fiction[[edit] | [edit source]]
Cassandra was featured in the play Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare, which was set during the Trojan War.
In Act II Scene II, Cassandra arrived ranting and raving while Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Helenus discussed a message from Nestor in which a peaceful resolution to the conflict was promised if they simply returned Helen. Cassandra said "a strange old man" had wandered through her dreams the previous night and that she sensed he would bring destruction to them all "in concert with the theft which sparked this war". She specifically blamed Paris for stealing Helen, proclaiming "our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all". In a variant version of the play, the entire conversation was overheard by the Prologue who was concealed within an urn. He claimed to have met Cassandra by the walls. (PROSE: Troilus and Cressida [+]Loading...["Troilus and Cressida (short story)"])