In Greek mythology, the Apple of Discord (Ancient Greek: μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος) was a golden apple dropped by Eris, the goddess of strife, at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. It sparked a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite that led to the Judgement of Paris and ultimately the Trojan War.
In common parlance, the "apple of discord" is the core, kernel, or crux of an argument, or a small matter that could lead to a bigger dispute.
The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War, and in later versions to the foundation of Rome.
Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. In revenge, she brought a golden apple, inscribed, "To the fairest one", which she threw into the wedding. Three guests, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, after some disputation, agreed to have Paris of Troy choose the fairest one. Paris chose Aphrodite, she having bribed him with the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus. Consequently, Paris carried Helen off to Troy, and the Greeks invaded Troy for Helen's return. Eris's Apple of Discord (or her not being invited to the wedding in the first place) was thus the instrumental casus belli of the Trojan War.
View the full Wikipedia page for Judgement of ParisThe Feast of the Gods or Banquet of the Gods as a subject in art showing a group of deities at table has a long history going back into antiquity. Showing Greco-Roman deities, it enjoyed a revival in popularity in the Italian Renaissance, and then in the Low Countries during the 16th century, when it was popular with Northern Mannerist painters, at least partly as an opportunity to show copious amounts of nudity.
Often the occasion shown was specifically either the wedding of Cupid and Psyche or that of Peleus and Thetis, but other works show other occasions, especially the Feast of Bacchus, or a generalized feast. While the wedding of Cupid and Psyche is just the happy ending of Psyche's story, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis is part of the grand narrative of Greek mythology. The feast was interrupted by Eris, goddess of discord, who threw the golden Apple of Discord inscribed "for the most beautiful" into the company, provoking the argument that led to the Judgement of Paris, and ultimately to the Trojan War. Eris is sometimes shown in the air with the apple, or the apple with the diners, and sometimes the feast forms a background scene to a painting of the Judgement, or vice versa. This wedding was also used as a political symbol around the time of the marriage of the Dutch leader William the Silent to Charlotte of Bourbon in 1575.
View the full Wikipedia page for Feast of the Gods (art)