Trojan horse - wikipedia Trojan horse This article is about the mythological Trojan Horse. For other uses, see Trojan horse ( disambiguation ). Trojan horse as depicted in the Vergilius Vaticanus Detail from The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Domenico Tiepolo ( 1773 ), inspired by Virgil 's Aeneid Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the independent city of Troy and win the war. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10 - year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war. Metaphorically a `` Trojan Horse '' has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer program which tricks users into willingly running it is also called a `` Trojan horse '' or simply a `` Trojan ''. The main ancient source for the story is the Aeneid of Virgil, a Latin epic poem from the time of Augustus. The event is also referred to in Homer 's Odyssey. In the Greek tradition, the horse is called the `` Wooden Horse '' ( Δούρειος Ἵππος, Doúreios Híppos, in the Homeric Ionic dialect ). Contents 1 Literary accounts 1.1 Men in the horse 2 Factual explanations 3 Images 4 Notes 5 External links Literary accounts Sinon is brought to Priam, from folio 101r of the Roman Vergil According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Odysseus thought of building a great wooden horse ( the horse being the emblem of Troy ), hiding an elite force inside, and fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy. Under the leadership of Epeius, the Greeks built the wooden horse in three days. Odysseus 's plan called for one man to remain outside the horse ; he would act as though the Greeks had abandoned him, leaving the horse as a gift for the Trojans. An inscription was engraved on the horse reading : `` For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this offering to Athena ''. Then they burned their tents and left to Tenedos by night. Greek soldier Sinon was `` abandoned '', and was to signal to the Greeks by lighting a beacon. In Virgil 's poem, Sinon, the only volunteer for the role, successfully convinces the Trojans that he has been left behind and that the Greeks are gone. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse is an offering to the goddess Athena, meant to atone for the previous desecration of her temple at Troy by the Greeks, and ensure a safe journey home for the Greek fleet. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse was built to be too large for them to take it into their city and gain the favor of Athena for themselves. While questioning Sinon, the Trojan priest Laocoön guesses the plot and warns the Trojans, in Virgil 's famous line Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes ( `` I fear Greeks, even those bearing gifts '' ), Danai ( acc Danaos ) or Danaans ( Homer 's name for the Greeks ) being the ones who had built the Trojan Horse. However, the god Poseidon sends two sea serpents to strangle him and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus before any Trojan heeds his warning. According to Apollodorus the two serpents were sent by Apollo, whom Laocoon had insulted by sleeping with his wife in front of the `` divine image ''. In the Odyssey, Homer says that Helen of Troy also guesses the plot and tries to trick and uncover the Greek soldiers inside the horse by imitating the voices of their wives, and Anticlus attempts to answer, but Odysseus shuts his mouth with his hand. King Priam 's daughter Cassandra, the soothsayer of Troy, insists that the horse will be the downfall of the city and its royal family. She too is ignored, hence their doom and loss of the war. Trojan War Achilles tending the wounded Patroclus ( Attic red - figure kylix, c. 500 BC ) The war Setting : Troy ( modern Hisarlik, Turkey ) Period : Bronze Age Traditional dating : c. 1194 -- 1184 BC Modern dating : c. 1260 -- 1180 BC Outcome : Greek victory, destruction of Troy See also : Historicity of the Iliad Literary sources Iliad Epic Cycle Aeneid, Book 2 Iphigenia in Aulis Philoctetes Ajax The Trojan Women Posthomerica See also : Trojan War in popular culture Episodes Judgement of Paris Seduction of Helen Trojan Horse Sack of Troy The Returns Wanderings of Odysseus Aeneas and the Founding of Rome Greeks and allies Agamemnon Achilles Helen Menelaus Nestor Odysseus Ajax Diomedes Patroclus Thersites Achaeans Myrmidons See also : Catalogue of Ships Trojans and allies Priam Hecuba Hector Paris Cassandra Andromache Aeneas Memnon Troilus Penthesilea and the Amazons Sarpedon See also : Trojan Battle Order Participant gods Caused the war : Eris Zeus On the Greek side : Athena Hera Hephaestus Hermes Poseidon Thetis On the Trojan side : Aphrodite Apollo Ares Artemis Leto Scamander Related topics Homeric question Archaeology of Troy Mycenae Mycenaean warfare This incident is mentioned in the Odyssey : What a thing was this, too, which that mighty man wrought and endured in the carven horse, wherein all we chiefs of the Argives were sitting, bearing to the Trojans death and fate ! 4.271 ff But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena 's help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilion. 8.487 ff ( trans. Samuel Butler ) The most detailed and most familiar version is in Virgil 's Aeneid, Book II ( trans. A.S. Kline ). After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the Greeks, opposed by the Fates, and damaged by the war, build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas 's divine art, and weave planks of fir over its ribs : they pretend it 's a votive offering : this rumour spreads. They secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot, there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge cavernous insides with armed warriors. (... ) Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd with him, and shouts from far off : `` O unhappy citizens, what madness ? Do you think the enemy 's sailed away ? Or do you think any Greek gift 's free of treachery ? Is that Ulysses 's reputation ? Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the wood, or it 's been built as a machine to use against our walls, or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above, or it hides some other trick : Trojans, do n't trust this horse. Whatever it is, I 'm afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts. '' Book II includes Laocoön saying : `` Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. '' ( `` Do not trust the horse, Trojans ! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even bringing gifts. '' ) Well before Virgil, the story is also alluded to in Greek classical literature. In Euripides ' play Trojan Women, written in 415 BC, the god Poseidon proclaims : `` For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host, and sent it within the battlements, fraught with death ; whence in days to come men shall tell of ' the wooden horse, ' with its hidden load of warriors. '' Men in the horse Thirty of the Achaeans ' best warriors hid in the Trojan horse 's belly and two spies in its mouth. Other sources give different numbers : The Bibliotheca 50 ; Tzetzes 23 ; and Quintus Smyrnaeus gives the names of 30, but says there were more. In late tradition the number was standardized at 40. Their names follow : Ulysseus ( leader ) Acamas Uden Ajax the Lesser Amphidamas Amphimachus Anticlus Antimachus Antiphates Calchas Cyanippus Demophon Diomedes Ishana Epeius Eumelus Euryalus Eurydamas Eurymachus Eurypylus Ialmenus Idomeneus Iphidamas Leonteus Machaon Meges Menelaus Menestheus Meriones Neoptolemus Peneleos Philoctetes Podalirius Polypoetes Sthenelus Teucer Thalpius Thersander Thoas Thrasymedes Factual explanations Heinrich Schliemann, modern excavator of Troy There has been speculation that the Trojan Horse may have been a battering ram or other sort of siege engine resembling, to some extent, a horse, and that the description of the use of this device was then transformed into a myth by later oral historians who were not present at the battle and were unaware of that meaning of the name. Assyrians at the time used siege machines with animal names, often covered with dampened horse hides to protect against flaming arrows ; it is possible that the Trojan Horse was such. Pausanias, who lived in the 2nd century AD, wrote in his book Description of Greece `` That the work of Epeius was a contrivance to make a breach in the Trojan wall is known to everybody who does not attribute utter silliness to the Phrygians '' where, by Phrygians, he means the Trojans. Some authors have suggested that the gift was not a horse with warriors hiding inside, but a boat carrying a peace envoy, and it has also been noted that the terms used to put men in the horse are those used when describing the embarkation of men on a ship. A more speculative theory, originally proposed by Fritz Schachermeyr, states that the Trojan Horse is a metaphor for a destructive earthquake that damaged the walls of Troy and allowed the Greeks in. In this theory, the horse represents Poseidon, who as well as being god of the sea was also god of horses and earthquakes. This theory is supported by the fact that archaeological digs have found that Troy VI was heavily damaged in an earthquake, but is hard to square with the mythological claim that Poseidon built the walls of Troy in the first place. A recent discovery made by the Italian Naval Archaeologist Francesco Tiboni, first presented in 2016 in a peer review academic journal, has demonstrated that the Trojan Horse was indeed a Ship. According to the Homeric texts and the archaeology of ancient boats and ships, in fact, the Hippos built by Epeus has to be considered a galley like the ones in use along the Greek and the Phoenician coasts of that time to pay tribute after the end of the wars. Images This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. ( November 2010 ) The Mykonos vase, with one of the earliest known renditions of the Trojan Horse. ( Note the depiction of the faces of hidden warriors shown on the horse 's side. ) There are three known surviving classical depictions of the Trojan Horse. The earliest is on a fibula brooch dated about 700 BC. The other two are on relief pithos vases from the adjoining Grecian islands Mykonos and Tinos, both usually dated between 675 and 650 BC, the one from Mykonos being known as the Mykonos Vase. Historian Michael Wood, however, dates the Mykonos Vase to the 8th century BC, some 500 years after the supposed time of the war, but before the written accounts attributed by tradition to Homer. Wood concludes from that evidence that the story of the Trojan Horse existed before those accounts were written. At the Istanbul Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, Turkey At the Schliemann Museum in Ankershagen, Germany From the 2004 movie Troy A modern interpretation at the Troja - Ausstellung ( Troy Fair ) in Stuttgart, Germany ( May 2001 ) The story of the Trojan horse was depicted in the art of Gandhara. British Museum. Notes Jump up ^ Broeniman, Clifford ( 1996 ). `` Demodocus, Odysseus, and the Trojan War in `` Odyssey '' 8 ``. The Classical World. 90 ( 1 ) : 3 -- 13. JSTOR 4351895. Jump up ^ Bibliotheca, Epitome, e. 5.15 Jump up ^ `` Virgil : Aeneid II ''. Poetryintranslation.com. Retrieved 2012 - 08 - 10. Jump up ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Epitome, Epit. E. 5.18 Jump up ^ Homer, Odyssey, 4. 274 - 289. Jump up ^ Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York : Everyman 's Library, 1992. Print. Jump up ^ `` Virgil ''. poetryintranslation.com. Jump up ^ `` The Trojan Women, Euripides ''. Classics.mit.edu. Retrieved 2012 - 08 - 10. Jump up ^ Epitome 5.14 Jump up ^ Posthomerica 641 -- 650 Jump up ^ Posthomerica xii. 314 - 335 Jump up ^ `` THE WOODEN HORSE - Greek Mythology Link ''. Maicar.com. Retrieved 2012 - 08 - 10. Jump up ^ Michael Wood, in his book `` In search of the Trojan war '' ISBN 978 - 0 - 520 - 21599 - 3 ( which was shown on BBC TV as a series ) Jump up ^ `` Pausanias, Description of Greece 1, XXIII, 8 ''. Perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2012 - 08 - 10. Jump up ^ See pages 51 - 52 inTroy C. 1700 - 1250 BC, Nic Fields, Donato Spedaliere & Sarah S. Spedalier, Osprey Publishing, 2004 Jump up ^ See pages 22 - 23 in The fall of Troy in early Greek poetry and art, Michael John Anderson, Oxford University Press, 1997 ^ Jump up to : Eric H. Cline ( 2013 ). The Trojan War : A Very Short Introduction. ISBN 0199333823. Jump up ^ Stephen Kershaw ( 2010 ). A Brief Guide to Classical Civilization. ISBN 1849018006. Jump up ^ Tiboni, Francesco. `` The Dourateos Ippos from allegory to Archaeology : a Phoenician Ship to break the Wall. '' Archaeologia maritima mediterranea 13.13 ( 2016 ) : 91 - 104 Jump up ^ Sparks, B.A. ( April 1971 ). `` The Trojan Horse in Classical Art ''. Greece & Rome. Second series. 18 ( 1 ) : 54 -- 70. JSTOR 642388. doi : 10.1017 / s001738350001768x. Jump up ^ Caskey, Miriam Ervin ( Winter 1976 ). `` Notes on Relief Pithoi of the Tenian - Boiotian Group ''. American Journal of Archaeology. 80 ( 1 ) : 19 -- 41. JSTOR 502935. Jump up ^ Wood, Michael ( 1985 ). In Search of the Trojan War. London : BBC books. pp. 80 ; 251. ISBN 978 - 0 - 563 - 20161 - 8. 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Question: who warned the trojans that the wooden horse was a trick
Answer: Laocoön