Why did the Trojans accept Paris back?

Question

I just learned that Paris was exposed as a baby (left outside to die).

How did he survive? If he was exposed, why did the Trojans accept him back as their prince?

Answer 1

First, how did the infant Paris survive?

The first son born to her [Hecuba] was Hector; and when a second babe was about to be born Hecuba dreamed she had brought forth a firebrand, and that the fire spread over the whole city and burned it. When Priam learned of the dream from Hecuba, he sent for his son Aesacus, for he was an interpreter of dreams, having been taught by his mother’s father Merops. He declared that the child was begotten to be the ruin of his country and advised that the babe should be exposed. When the babe was born Priam gave it to a servant to take and expose on Ida; now the servant was named Agelaus. Exposed by him, the infant was nursed for five days by a bear; and, when he found it safe, he took it up, carried it away, brought it up as his own son on his farm, and named him Paris. When he grew to be a young man, Paris excelled many in beauty and strength, and was afterwards surnamed Alexander, because he repelled robbers and defended the flocks.†

_{† Apollodorus apparently derives the name Alexander from ἀλέξω “to defend” and ἀνδρός, the genitive of “man.”}

_{Pseudo-Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century). Library 3.12. Translation and footnote by James George Frazer (1921). Perseus Digital Library.}

Once, while she [Hecuba] was pregnant, she envisioned in her sleep that she was giving birth to a burning torch from which a great number of serpents emerged. She reported this vision to every soothsayer, and all of them told her to kill the newborn child to prevent it from bringing destruction to the country. When Hecuba bore Alexander, she handed him over to some of her men to be put to death, but out of pity they only exposed him. Shepherds found the exposed infant, raised him as one of their own, and named him Paris.

_{Pseudo-Hyginus (circa 2nd century). Fabulae 91. Translated by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma (2007). Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae. Indianapolis: Hackett.}

Second, how was Paris accepted back to Troy as a young man?

When Paris grew into a young man, he had a pet bull. Priam sent some men there to lead back some bull to be given as a prize at the funeral games being held in Paris’ honor, and they started to lead Paris’ bull away. He caught up to them and asked where they were taking it. They told him that they were taking the bull to Priam as a prize for the man who was victorious at the funeral games for Alexander. Burning with a desire to get his bull back, Paris went down to the contest and won every event, besting even his own brothers. Deiphobus grew resentful and drew his sword against him, but Paris leaped up to the altar of Jupiter Herceus. When Cassandra divined that he was Deiphobus’ brother, Priam acknowledged him and welcomed him into his palace.

_{Fabulae 91}

Priam gave [athletic contests] in Ilium at the empty tomb of Paris, the child he had ordered to be killed. During these games the following competed in the footrace: Nestor son of Neleus; Helenus, Deiphobus, and Polites, all sons of Priam; Telephus son of Hercules; Cygnus son of Neptune; Sarpedon son of Jupiter; and Paris Alexander, Priam’s shepherd and son, although he was not aware of it. Paris won the race and was discovered to be Priam’s son.

_{Fabulae 273.}

According to Nero’s ‘Troica’, Paris was the strongest, so that in the Trojan athletic contests he overcame everyone, even Hector himself, who drew a sword against him in anger, whereupon he [Paris] said that he was his brother, which he proved by the child’s rattle which he carried, concealed in his shepherd’s cloak.†

_{Maurus Servius Honoratus (4th or 5th century). Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil, note to 5.370. Project Gutenberg. My translation.}

_{† The recognition of the hero by some token related to his birth was a stereotypical plot device in classical tragedy. (Compare the recognition of Euripides’ Ion by the basket in which he was abandoned as a baby by his mother Creusa, or the recognition of Sophocles’ Oedipus by the injury to his ankles where his father Laius had pinned them together.) So we expect Nero to have got the detail of the rattle from such a play. Both Sophocles and Euripides wrote tragedies titled Alexandros depicting this episode, but only fragments survive.}

The return of Paris to Troy follows his award of the golden apple to Aphrodite and precedes his abduction of Helen, and so ought to fit the timeline of the Cypria, but Proclus does not mention it in his summary of that work.

Answer 2

Paris survived with Agelais help on the Gargarus by the mountain Ida. He returned to Troy when Trojans prepared games with bulls, and won.

Source-Robert Graves,The Greek myths,chapter 159.,Paris and Helena.