Trojan War
The Iliad portrays Paris as ambivalent. In Book 3, he proclaims that he will duel any of the Greeks, only to flee once Menelaus steps up. After being reproached by his brother Hector, he consents to the duel. When in this duel it seems his defeat it imminent, Aphrodite whisks Paris away, taking him to his chamber where she ensures that Helen sleeps with him. Book 3 contrasts Paris with Menelaus, Helen's previous husband, by juxtaposing the former's effeminate nature with the latter's animalistic masculinity.
The poem depicts him as a lesser warrior than Hector, who rebukes him multiple times, calling him pretty and unwarlike. Christopher Ransom claims that Paris functions as a foil to establish the idealised framework of heroic virtue, contrasting Paris's physical indulgence with Hector's civic duty. Paris also fights using a bow, a weapon that was generally seen as unmanly. He does, however, successfully wound several Greeks over the course of the poem, including Diomedes, Machaon, and Eurypylus.
In Book 6 Hector is appalled to find that Paris is still at home alongside Helen while the war rages outside. He criticises him for remaining inside while the army bleeds for him, demanding that he get up immediately. Helen is apologetic, expressing self loathing and shame at Paris' behaviour, openly mocking Paris' lack of moral character and courage, and wishing that if the gods had to curse her as they did, they could have at least paired her with a better man. Hector tells her that he cannot stay, and asks Helen to make sure that Paris gets moving so that they can return to the fight together. He bids farewell to his wife Andromache, then finally Paris catches up to him, making a lighthearted joke about keeping him waiting, and Hector laments that Paris would have the strength and skill of a warrior, but lacks the courage and commitment to use them as would be expected of him. He tells Paris that the Trojans speak of him in utter disgrace, and wishes Paris would get his act together and remove the disgrace his actions have brought upon himself and Troy.
In Book 11, Paris wounds Diomedes from afar, with an arrow through the foot. In response to his unseemly crowing, Diomedes disparages him in multiple ways: "Archer, you who without your bow are nothing, slanderer and seducer!" In Book 13, Paris calls on the fighting Trojans to press the attack against the Greeks.
Hector and Achilles engage in a duel in Book 22, with the Greek hero emerging victorious. Immediately before his death, Hector prophesies that Achilles will meet his own demise at the hands of Paris and the god Apollo. In the Aethiopis, a lost epic that chronologically followed the Iliad, Achilles's death at the hands of Paris and Apollo was described. In the poem, he was probably killed by an arrow that was shot at his heel, the only part of his body susceptible to injury. According to a version in the Fabulae, a 2nd-century AD mythological handbook, Apollo kills him while disguised as Paris.
The Little Iliad and Sophocles's Philoctetes relate that Paris is killed during a duel with the archer Philoctetes. His body is fought over and recovered by Trojan soldiers.
In later versions, Paris doesn't die immediately, but after Philoctetes mortally wounds him, he goes to Mount Ida or is transported there by servants and attendants. There, either he or those accompanying him ask Paris' first wife, the nymph Oenone, to heal him, which she refuses.
Depending on the account, Paris either dies on the mountainside, or is brought back to Troy where he dies the same day. When Oenone hears of his death she commits suicide, either by leaping from heights, hanging herself or jumping on Paris' funeral pyre. Yet another version has Oenone eager to heal Paris, but was prevented by her father from doing so.
In the account of Dares Phrygius, Paris fatally wounds Ajax the Greater with an arrow, but Ajax hunts him down and kills Paris before dropping dead.
After Paris's death, his brothers Deiphobus and Helenus competed for the hand in marriage of Helen, with Deiphobus winning out. Deiphobus was later killed by Menelaus during the sack of Troy.
