TheMykonos vase (750 to 650 BC), 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)
InGreek mythology, theTrojan Horse (Greek:δούρειος ίππος,romanized: doureios hippos,lit. 'wooden horse') was a woodenhorse said to have been used by the Greeks during theTrojan War to enter the city ofTroy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned inHomer'sIliad, with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in theOdyssey. It is described at length in theAeneid, in whichVirgil recounts how, after a fruitless ten-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest ofOdysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. 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 the cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, 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. Amalicious computer program that tricks users into willingly running it is also called a "Trojan horse" or simply a "Trojan".
The main ancient source for the story still extant is theAeneid of Virgil, aLatinepic poem from the time ofAugustus. The story featured heavily in theLittle Iliad and theSack of Troy, both part of theEpic Cycle, but these have only survived in fragments andepitomes. As Odysseus was the chief architect of the Trojan Horse, it is also referred to inHomer'sOdyssey.[1]In the Greek tradition, the horse is called the "wooden horse" (δουράτεος ἵπποςdouráteos híppos inHomeric/Ionic Greek (Odyssey 8.512);δούρειος ἵππος,doúreios híppos inAttic Greek). InDictys Cretensis' account, the idea of the Trojan Horse's construction comes fromHelenus, who prophesies that the Greeks must dedicate a wooden horse to Athena.[2]
Thirty of the Achaeans' best warriors hid in the Trojan horse's womb and two spies in its mouth. Other sources give different numbers: TheBibliotheca 50;[3]Tzetzes 23;[4] and Quintus Smyrnaeus gives the names of 30, but says there were more.[5] In late tradition, the number was standardized at 40. Their names follow:
Sinon is brought to Priam, from folio 101r of theRoman Vergil.
According toQuintus 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 ofEpeius, 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 soldierSinon was "abandoned" and was to signal to the Greeks by lighting a beacon.[6]
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 goddessAthena, 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 priestLaocoön guesses the plot and warns the Trojans, in Virgil's famous lineTimeo Danaos et dona ferentes ("I fear Greeks, even those bearing gifts"),[7] Danai (accDanaos) orDanaans (Homer's name for the Greeks) being the ones who had built the Trojan Horse. However, the godPoseidon sends two sea serpents to strangle him and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus before any Trojan heeds his warning. According toApollodorus, the two serpents were sent byApollo, whom Laocoön had insulted by sleeping with his wife in front of the "divine image".[8] In theOdyssey, Homer says thatHelen also guesses the plot and tries to trick and uncover the Greek soldiers inside the horse by imitating the voices of their wives, andAnticlus attempts to answer, but Odysseus shuts his mouth with his hand.[9]King Priam's daughterCassandra, thesoothsayer 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.[10]
What a thing was this, too, which that mighty man wrought and endured in the carven horse, wherein all we chiefs of theArgives were sitting, bearing to the Trojans death and fate![11]
But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, whichEpeius made withAthena'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 Ilios.[12]
The most detailed and most familiar version is in Virgil'sAeneid, Book II[13] (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, don't trust this horse. Whatever it is, I'm afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts."
Well before Virgil, the story is also alluded to in Greek classical literature. InEuripides' playTrojan 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."[14]
A replica of the Trojan Horse, used in the 2004 filmTroy, stands today inÇanakkale, Turkey, the modern-day location of the city of Troy.
The Phoenician ship calledhippos, from the Assyrian city of Khorsabad, 8th century BC
It has been speculated that the story of the Trojan Horse resulted from later poets creatively misunderstanding an actual historical use of asiege engine at Troy. Animal names are often used for military machinery, as with theRomanonager and various Bronze AgeAssyrian siege engines which were often covered with dampened horse hides to protect against flaming arrows.[15]Pausanias, who lived in the 2nd century AD, wrote in his bookDescription 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 thePhrygians";[16] by the Phrygians, he meant the Trojans.
Some authors have suggested that the gift might also have been a ship, with warriors hidden inside.[17] It has been noted that the terms used to put men in the horse are those used by ancient Greek authors to describe the embarkation of men on a ship and that there are analogies between the building of ships byParis at the beginning of the Trojan saga and the building of the horse at the end;[18] ships are called "sea-horses" once in theOdyssey.[19] This view has recently gained support from naval archaeology:[20][21] ancient text and images show that a Phoenician merchant ship type decorated with a horse head, calledhippos ('horse') by Greeks, became very diffuse in theLevant area around the beginning of the 1st millennium BC and was used to trade precious metals and sometimes to pay tribute after the end of a war.[21] That has caused the suggestion that the original story viewed the Greek soldiers hiding inside the hull of such a vessel, possibly disguised as a tribute, and that the term was later misunderstood in the oral transmission of the story, the origin to the Trojan horse myth.
Ships with a horsehead decoration, perhaps cult ships, are also represented in artifacts of theMinoan/Mycenaean era;[22][23] the image[24] on a seal found in the palace of Knossos, dated around 1200 BC, which depicts a ship with oarsmen and a superimposed horse figure, originally interpreted as a representation of horse transport by sea,[25] may in fact be related to this kind of vessel, and even be considered as the first (pre-literary) representation of the Trojan Horse episode.[26]
A more speculative theory, originally proposed byFritz Schachermeyr, is that the Trojan Horse is a metaphor for a destructiveearthquake that damaged the walls of Troy and allowed theGreeks inside.[27] In his theory, the horse representsPoseidon, who as well as being god of the sea was also god of horses and earthquakes. The theory is supported by the fact that archaeological digs have found thatTroy VI was heavily damaged in anearthquake[27] but is hard to square with the mythological claim thatPoseidon himself built the walls of Troy in the first place.[28]
Pictorial representations of the Trojan Horse earlier than, or contemporary to, the first literary appearances of the episode can help clarify what was the meaning of the story as perceived by its contemporary audience. There are few ancient (before 480 BC) depictions of the Trojan Horse surviving.[29][30] The earliest is on a Boeotianfibula dating from about 700 BC.[31][32] Other early depictions are found on tworeliefpithoi from the Greek islandsMykonos andTinos, both generally dated between 675 and 650 BC. The one from Mykonos (see figure at the top of this article) is known as theMykonos vase.[29][33] HistorianMichael Wood dates the Mykonos vase to the eighth century BC, before the written accounts attributed by tradition toHomer, and posits this as evidence that the story of the Trojan Horse existed before those accounts were written.[34] Other archaic representations of the Trojan horse are found on aCorinthianaryballos dating back to 560 BC[29] (see figure), on a vase fragment to 540 BC (see figure), and on an Etruscan carnelian scarab.[35] An Attic red-figure fragment from a kalyx-krater dated to around 400 BC depicts the scene where the Greeks are climbing down the Trojan Horse, represented by the wooden hatch door.[36]
The earliest known depiction of the Trojan Horse,[29] on a bronze fibula (ca. 700 BC), note the wheels and the square openings on the horse's side
Depiction of the Trojan Horse on a Corinthianaryballos (ca. 560 BC) found inCerveteri (Italy)
Warriors leaving the Trojan Horse, fragment of an attic black-figurekrater fromOrbetello (Italy), ca. 540 BC
The term "Trojan horse" is used metaphorically to mean any trick or strategy that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected place; or to deceive by appearance, hiding malevolent intent in an outwardly benign exterior; to subvert from within using deceptive means.[37][38][39]
^Broeniman, Clifford (1996). "Demodocus, Odysseus, and the Trojan War in "Odyssey" 8".The Classical World.90 (1):3–13.doi:10.2307/4351895.JSTOR4351895.
^Cretensis, Dictys."5.9".www.theoi.com. Retrieved12 January 2024.
^Evans, Arthur (1935).The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustrated by the discoveries at Knossos. Vol. 4. p. 827.
^Caskey, Miriam Ervin (Winter 1976). "Notes on Relief Pithoi of the Tenian-Boiotian Group".American Journal of Archaeology.80 (1):19–41.doi:10.2307/502935.JSTOR502935.S2CID191406489.
![The earliest known depiction of the Trojan Horse,[29] on a bronze fibula (ca. 700 BC), note the wheels and the square openings on the horse's side](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aCatalogue_of_the_bronzes%2c_Greek%2c_Roman%2c_and_Etruscan%2c_in_the_Department_of_Greek_and_Roman_Antiquities%2c_British_Museum_(1899)_(14780940341).jpg)
