In Greek mythology, Apollo gave Cassandra the power to prophesy. Cassandra was a daughter of Priam and Hecuba and a princess of Troy.
The traditional story says that Apollo loved Cassandra and granted her prophetic ability. When she rejected him, he could not remove the gift, so he added a curse: nobody would believe her predictions. This made her knowledge both extraordinary and useless as a warning to others.
Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy and warned against accepting the Trojan Horse. The Trojans ignored her, and the horse was brought inside the city. Her story became a lasting example of a true warning that an audience refuses to accept.
Cassandra’s fate continues after the city’s fall. Agamemnon took her as a captive, and in Greek tragedy she predicts both his murder and her own death after reaching his palace. The myth is one source of the modern word “Cassandra,” used for an accurate but disregarded prophet.