The Trojan Horse

In the tenth year of the Trojan War, with no hope of taking the city by storm, the Greeks resorted to a stratagem: a huge hollow wooden horse, designed by Odysseus, with picked warriors hidden in its belly. The story is told most fully in Virgil’s Aeneid (Book 2), but it is already known to the Odyssey, and each of our sources adds details the others lack.

The Trojan Horse Story: Summary

The Trojan Horse is the trick that ended the Trojan War. The Greeks built a great wooden horse, hid warriors inside it, burned their tents and sailed out of sight to the island of Tenedos, leaving the horse on the beach as an offering to Athena (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.14–15). The Trojans argued over what to do with it, and in the end dragged it into their own city. That night the hidden men climbed out, opened the gates to the returning fleet, and Troy fell (Epitome 5.19–20; Aeneid 2.250–267).

Odysseus devised the plan and the carpenter Epeius built the horse. One man, Sinon, was left behind to deceive the Trojans, and the priest Laocoon, who warned against the horse, was killed by two serpents from the sea (Aeneid 2.199–227). Homer already knows that the Trojans were divided about the horse and that it brought Troy’s ruin (Odyssey 8.492–520).

The Stratagem

Who Built the Trojan Horse?

The horse was built by Epeius, a Greek craftsman, to a plan devised by Odysseus. Homer says that Epeius made it “with Athena’s help”, and that Odysseus later brought it into the city as a trick (Odyssey 8.492–495). Apollodorus says that Odysseus devised the plan and told it to Epeius, who was an architect (Epitome 5.14). Odysseus supplied the idea; Epeius supplied the carpentry.

Epeius is the same man who, in the games for Patroclus, won the boxing match and then admitted that he was no good in battle (Iliad 23.664–675). Quintus Smyrnaeus adds that Athena appeared to him in a dream and told him how to build the horse (Posthomerica 12).

Epeius and the Construction of the Horse

For Odysseus’ plan to work, the Greeks needed a master craftsman, and they had one in Epeius. By Apollodorus’ account he felled timber on Mount Ida and built a hollow horse with a door in its side (Epitome 5.14). Quintus says that he finished it in three days, and that rollers were set under its feet so that it could be hauled (Posthomerica 12). Virgil says that its ribs were made of planks of fir (Aeneid 2.16), while Quintus has the Greeks fell pines on Ida for it (Posthomerica 12).

Apollodorus records the inscription on the horse: “For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this thank-offering to Athena” (Epitome 5.15). The horse was therefore presented as a gift to the goddess whose Palladium Odysseus and Diomedes had stolen from Troy (Aeneid 2.162–170; Little Iliad, in Proclus’ summary).

The Heroes in the Horse

Once the horse was ready, Odysseus persuaded the best of the Greeks to climb into it in full armour (Epitome 5.14). Homer himself names Odysseus, Menelaus and Diomedes among them, and says that Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son, was in the horse and never lost his courage; in the Odyssey it is Odysseus who has charge of opening and closing the ambush (Odyssey 4.271–289; 11.523–532). In Quintus’ list the first to enter was Neoptolemus, followed by Menelaus, Odysseus, Sthenelus, Diomedes, Philoctetes, Menestheus, Thoas, Acamas and many others (Posthomerica 12).

Epeius, who built the horse, went in last. He alone knew how the door opened and shut, so he drew up the ladders, made the door fast and sat down beside the bolt (Posthomerica 12).

How Many Soldiers Were in the Trojan Horse?

The ancient sources do not agree on a number. Apollodorus says that Odysseus persuaded fifty men to enter, and adds that the Little Iliad, a lost epic, gave the number as three thousand (Epitome 5.14). Quintus names about thirty men by name and says that “all their chiefest” went in, as many as the horse could hold (Posthomerica 12). Virgil gives no number, saying only that the hollow belly was packed with armed men, but he names nine who came out of it: Thessandrus, Sthenelus, Ulysses, Acamas, Thoas, Neoptolemus, Machaon, Menelaus and Epeos (Aeneid 2.18–20, 2.261–264). Later writers who give a precise count, such as Tzetzes, are too late to count as evidence.

The Rest of the Plan

Once the horse was in place, the remaining Greeks burned their tents and sailed away, leaving the beach empty. They lay off the island of Tenedos, close enough to return at a signal (Epitome 5.15; Aeneid 2.21–24). In Apollodorus’ account Sinon was left behind to light a beacon at the right moment (Epitome 5.15), and in Virgil he is the man who plays the deserter and deceives the Trojans (Aeneid 2.57–198).

The Discovery of the Trojan Horse

Priam, Thymoetes, and Capys

At daybreak the Trojans saw that the Greek camp was deserted. They poured out of the gates and wandered over the empty beach, marvelling at the horse (Aeneid 2.27–31). Some gazed at the fatal gift to Minerva (Athena); Thymoetes was the first to urge that it be brought inside the walls and set in the citadel, whether from treachery or because Troy’s fate was moving that way. Capys and the wiser heads said that the suspect Greek gift should be thrown into the sea, set on fire, or bored through to search its hollow belly (Aeneid 2.31–39).

Homer knew the same three-way argument: some Trojans wanted to split the hollow timber with bronze, some to drag it to the top of the citadel and throw it down the rocks, and some to spare it as a great offering to the gods, which was what finally happened (Odyssey 8.500–510). Apollodorus says that the Trojans dragged it to Priam’s palace and deliberated there (Epitome 5.16).

Laocoon’s Warning

Laocoon, a priest of Neptune, came running down from the citadel with a crowd behind him and shouted to the Trojans from a distance. He asked what madness this was, and whether they thought the Greeks had really gone, or that any Greek gift could be free of treachery. He bade them remember Ulysses, and said that he feared the Greeks even when they brought gifts. Then he hurled his great spear at the horse’s flank; it stuck there quivering, and the hollow belly gave back a groan (Aeneid 2.40–56).

Sinon Clarifies His Presence

At this moment Trojan shepherds dragged in a Greek prisoner with his hands bound behind him. He was Sinon, who had put himself in their way on purpose (Aeneid 2.57–76). He told Priam that he had once been a friend of Palamedes, whom Ulysses had falsely accused of treason and destroyed, and that Ulysses had hounded him ever since. Weary of the war, the Greeks had often wanted to sail home, but storms and the south wind kept them back. They sent to Apollo’s oracle and were told that, as at their first sailing, they must buy the winds with blood: a Greek life must be sacrificed. Ulysses then brought forward the seer Calchas, who after ten days of silence named Sinon as the victim. Sinon escaped before the sacrifice and hid in a marsh until the fleet had gone (Aeneid 2.77–144).

Moved by pity, Priam freed him and welcomed him as one of the Trojans (Aeneid 2.145–151). In Quintus, leaving behind a man unknown to the Trojans to tell this story was part of Odysseus’ plan from the start (Posthomerica 12); in Apollodorus Sinon is the signaller who lights the beacon (Epitome 5.19).

Sinon’s Explanation of the Wooden Horse

Priam asked what the horse was for and why it was so huge. Sinon answered that the Greeks had lost Athena’s favour on the day when Diomedes and Ulysses stole the Palladium from her citadel, killing its guards and touching the sacred image with bloody hands. Calchas had told them to build the horse to appease her, and to make it so tall that the Trojans could never take it through their gates. If the Trojans harmed it, he said, ruin would fall on Priam and Troy; if they brought it into the city, Asia would march against the walls of Pelops’ land (Aeneid 2.152–194).

The Death of Laocoon

Laocoon had been chosen by lot as priest of Neptune and was sacrificing a bull at the god’s altar when two huge serpents came across the sea from Tenedos. They seized his two young sons, wrapped them in their coils and bit into their bodies. When Laocoon rushed to help them, the serpents seized him too, and he cried out in agony as they strangled him (Aeneid 2.199–224). Then they made for the citadel and took shelter at the feet of Athena’s statue (Aeneid 2.225–227).

The Trojans took this as a sign from the gods. They decided that Laocoon had been punished for striking the horse with his spear, and that the horse must be dedicated to Athena (Aeneid 2.228–249). Virgil gives no reason beyond this for the serpents’ attack.

The Bloody Celebration

Helen and Deiphobus

The Trojans breached their own wall, set the horse on wheels and dragged it into the city with ropes, while boys and girls sang and touched the ropes. Four times, Virgil says, it stuck on the threshold, and the arms in its belly clashed, but the Trojans went on (Aeneid 2.234–249). Cassandra foretold the city’s doom, but by the god’s will the Trojans never believed her, and they decked the temples with festive garlands (Aeneid 2.246–249). In Apollodorus too, Cassandra declared that there was an armed force inside the horse, and the seer Laocoon backed her (Epitome 5.17).

Homer tells another episode in the words of Menelaus. Helen, who had come with Deiphobus, walked three times round the hollow ambush and called out the names of the Greek chiefs, imitating the voices of their wives. Menelaus and Diomedes, who sat inside with Odysseus, were eager to go out or to answer, but Odysseus held them back. Anticlus was about to answer when Odysseus clamped his hand over his mouth and held him until Athena led Helen away (Odyssey 4.271–289). Homer does not say why Helen did this. Odysseus then went with Menelaus to the house of Deiphobus (Odyssey 8.517–520).

How Long Were They Inside the Trojan Horse?

No ancient source gives a duration. From the accounts we can see that the Greeks went in at night, before the fleet sailed to Tenedos; that the Trojans found the horse at daybreak; and that the warriors came out in the night after the Trojans had feasted and slept (Aeneid 2.250–267; Epitome 5.14–20). The warriors therefore spent the better part of a day and a night in the dark, in full armour, and in silence.

The Attack

When the Trojans slept, the fleet sailed from Tenedos “in the friendly silence of the moon”; the royal ship raised a flame as a signal, and Sinon secretly unbarred the horse, from which the warriors slid down a rope (Aeneid 2.250–264). In Apollodorus, Sinon kindled the beacon on the grave of Achilles, and when the Greeks thought their enemies were asleep they opened the horse and came out (Epitome 5.19–20). Echion, son of Portheus, was the first out of the horse and was killed in the leap; the others let themselves down by a rope, reached the walls and opened the gates for the army (Epitome 5.20). In Virgil the Greeks killed the sentries, let in their comrades through the open gates and spread through a city buried in sleep and wine (Aeneid 2.265–267).

Why Did the Trojan Horse Trick Work?

The ancient accounts show the Trojans taking the horse in for reasons of piety as much as folly. It was inscribed as an offering to Athena, so that harming it seemed to risk the goddess’s anger (Epitome 5.15; Aeneid 2.183–194). Sinon’s tale gave the Trojans a reason to believe that the Greeks had gone and that the horse would give Troy the victory (Aeneid 2.57–198). The burned camp and empty sea seemed to confirm his story (Epitome 5.15–16).

The deaths of Laocoon and his sons looked to the Trojans like a sign from the gods that the one man who had warned them had been wrong (Aeneid 2.199–249). Homer adds that the city was fated to perish once it took in the great horse (Odyssey 8.511–513).

The Trojan Horse Sources

The main sources are Virgil’s Aeneid (2.13–267), which you can read Aeneid 2 in Theodore C. Williams’ blank verse translation, and the epitome of Apollodorus’ Library (5.14–20), which you can read The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome E.5.14. Further details come from Homer’s Odyssey (4.271–289, 8.492–520, 11.523–532), the Iliad (23.664–675) and Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica (Book 12).

See Also: Trojan War, The Sack of Troy, The Returns of the Greek Heroes, Odysseus