Cassandra, a beautiful Trojan princess, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, whom Apollo endowed with the gift of prophecy, but, as she had rejected his suit, doomed to utter prophecies which no one would believe, as happened with her warnings of the fate and the fall of Troy, which were treated by her countrymen as the ravings of a lunatic; her name is applied to any one who entertains gloomy forebodings.