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{{About|the mythological Trojan Horse|other uses|Trojan horse (disambiguation)}} |
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[[File:Theprocessionofthetrojanhorseintroybygiovannidomenicotiepolo.jpg|thumb|300px|Detail from ''The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy'' by [[Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo|Domenico Tiepolo]] (1773), inspired by Virgil's ''[[Aeneid]]'']] |
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The '''Trojan Horse''' is a tale from the [[Trojan War]] about the [[Stratagem (deception)|stratagem]] that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of [[Troy]] and end the conflict. In the [[literary canon|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, decisively ending the war. |
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The main ancient source for the story is the ''[[Aeneid]]'' of [[Virgil]], a [[Latin]] [[epic poem]] from the time of [[Augustus]]. The event does not occur in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'', which ends before the fall of the city, but is referred to in the ''[[Odyssey]]''. In the Greek tradition, the horse is called the "Wooden Horse" (Δούρειος Ἵππος, ''Doúreios Híppos'', in the [[Homeric Greek|Homeric]] [[Ionic Greek|Ionic dialect]]). |
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[[Metaphor]]ically 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 space. It is also associated with [[Trojan horse (computing)|"malware" computer programs]] presented as useful or harmless to induce the user to install and run them. |
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== Literary accounts == |
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[[File:RomanVirgilFolio101r.jpg|thumb|250px|Sinon is brought to Priam, from folio 101r of the [[Roman Vergil]]]] |
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According to [[Quintus Smyrnaeus]], [[Odysseus]] came up with the idea of building a great wooden horse (the horse being the emblem of Troy), hiding a select force inside, and fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy. Under the leadership of [[Epeios]], the Greeks built the wooden horse in three days. Odysseus' plan called for one man to remain outside of the horse; he would act as though the Greeks abandoned him, leaving the horse as a gift for the Trojans. A Greek soldier named [[Sinon]] was the only volunteer for the role. Virgil describes the actual encounter between Sinon and the Trojans: Sinon 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. The Horse was built on such a huge size to prevent the Trojans from taking the offering into their city, and thus garnering the favor of Athena for themselves. |
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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).<ref>[http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilAeneidII.htm#_Toc536009311 Virgil:Aeneid II<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>(original:Φοβού τους Δαναούς και δώρας φέρονταις) which became known as 'beware of Greeks bearing gifts," Danaos being the ones who built the [[Trojan Horse]]. However, the god [[Poseidon (mythology)|Poseidon]] sent two sea serpents to strangle him and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus, before any Trojan believes his warning. According to [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]] it was [[Apollo]] who sent the two serpents since Laocoon had insulted Apollo by sleeping with his wife in front of the "divine image".<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], Epitome, [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DEpitome%3Abook%3DE%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D18 Epit. E.5.18]</ref> [[Helen of Troy]] also guesses the plot and tries to trick and uncover the Greek men inside the horse by imitating the voices of their wives. [[Anticlus]] would have answered, but Odysseus shut his mouth with his hand.<ref>Homer, Odyssey, [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D265 4. 274-289].</ref> [[Priam|King Priam]]'s daughter [[Cassandra]], the [[Fortune-telling|soothsayer]] of Troy, insists that the horse would be the downfall of the city and its royal family. She too is ignored, hence their doom and loss of the war.<ref>Virgil. ''The Aeneid.'' Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Everyman's Library, 1992. Print.</ref> |
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{{Trojan War}} |
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This incident is mentioned in the ''[[Odyssey]]'': |
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:''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!'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=hom.+od.+4.271 4.271 ff] |
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: ''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 .'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=hom.+od.+8.487 8.487 ff] (trans. [[Samuel Butler]]) |
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The most detailed and most familiar version is in Virgil's ''Aeneid'', Book II [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilAeneidII.htm#_Toc536009309] (trans. A. S. Kline). |
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<blockquote> |
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''After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the Greeks,<br> |
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''opposed by the Fates, and damaged by the war,<br> |
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''build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas’s divine art,<br> |
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''and weave planks of fir over its ribs:<br> |
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''they pretend it’s a votive offering: this rumour spreads.<br> |
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''They secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot,<br> |
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''there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge<br> |
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''cavernous insides with armed warriors.<br> |
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[...]<br> |
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''Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights<br> |
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''of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd with him,<br> |
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''and shouts from far off: ‘O unhappy citizens, what madness?<br> |
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''Do you think the enemy’s sailed away? Or do you think<br> |
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''any Greek gift’s free of treachery? Is that Ulysses’s reputation?<br> |
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''Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the wood,<br> |
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''or it’s been built as a machine to use against our walls,<br> |
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''or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above,<br> |
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''or it hides some other trick: Trojans, don’t trust this horse.<br> |
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''Whatever it is, I’m afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts.’<br> |
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</blockquote> |
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Book II includes [[Laocoön]] saying: "''[[Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes|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.") |
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Well before Virgil, the story is also alluded to in Greek classical literature. In [[Euripides]]' play [[Trojan Women]], written in 415 B.C., 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.”''<ref>[http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/troj_women.html The Trojan Women, Euripides]</ref> |
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===Men in the horse=== |
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Thirty soldiers hid in the Trojan horse's belly and two spies in its mouth. Other sources give different numbers: [[Apollodorus]] 50;<ref>Epitome 5.14</ref> [[Tzetzes]] 23;<ref>Posthomerica 641–650</ref> and Quintus Smyrnaeus gives the names of thirty, but says there were more.<ref>Posthomerica xii.314-335</ref> In late tradition the number was standardized at 40. Their names follow:<ref>[http://www.maicar.com/GML/WOODENHORSE.html THE WOODEN HORSE - Greek Mythology Link<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> |
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{{div col|4}} |
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* [[Odysseus]] (main leader) |
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* [[Acamas]] |
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* [[Agapenor]] |
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* [[Ajax the Lesser]] |
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* [[Amphidamas]] <!--(Try 182)--> |
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* [[Amphimachus#Greek_warrior|Amphimachus]] |
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* [[Anticlus]] |
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* [[Antimachus]] <!--(QS.6.622, 12.314)--> |
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* [[Antiphates]] <!--(Try 180)--> |
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* [[Calchas]] <!--(Try 176, QS. 12.375)--> |
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* [[Cyanippus]] |
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* [[Demophon of Athens|Demophon]] |
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* [[Diomedes]] |
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* [[Echion]] |
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* [[Epeius]] |
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* [[Eumelus]] |
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* [[Euryalus]] |
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* [[Eurydamas]] |
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* [[Eurymachus]] |
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* [[Eurypylus]] |
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* [[Ialmenus]] |
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* [[Idomeneus]] |
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* [[Iphidamas]] |
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* [[Leonteus]] |
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* [[Machaon (mythology)|Machaon]] |
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* [[Meges]] |
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* [[Menelaus]] |
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* [[Menestheus]] |
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* [[Meriones (mythology)|Meriones]] |
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* [[Neoptolemus]] |
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* [[Peneleus]] |
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* [[Philoctetes]] |
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* [[Podalirius]] |
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* [[Polypoetes]] |
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* [[Sthenelus]] |
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* [[Teucer]] |
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* [[Thalpius]] |
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* [[Thersander]] |
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* [[Thoas]] |
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* [[Thrasymedes (mythology)|Thrasymedes]] |
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{{div col end}} |
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== Factual explanations == |
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[[File:Heinrich-Schliemann.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Heinrich Schliemann]] |
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According to [[Homer]], [[Troy]] stood overlooking the [[Dardanelles|Hellespont]] – a channel of water that separates [[Anatolia|Asia Minor]] and [[Europe]]. In the 1870s, [[Heinrich Schliemann]] set out to find it.<ref>[http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/newhomer.gif Image]</ref> Following Homer's description, he started to dig at [[Hisarlik]] in [[Turkey]] and uncovered the ruins of several cities, built one on top of the other. Several of the cities had been destroyed violently, but it was not clear which, if any, was Homer's Troy. In his enthusiasm for digging down into the lowest (and therefore oldest) layer of settlement (Troy of 2500 B.C.), Schliemann actually destroyed a large portion of the preceding layers, including the Troy of the Homeric Iliad. |
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[[Pausanias (geographer)|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]]"<ref>[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=paus.+1.1.1 1,XXIII,8]</ref> where, by Phrygians, he means the Trojans. |
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There has been modern speculation that the Trojan Horse may have been a [[battering ram]] 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 history|oral historians]] who were not present at the battle and were unaware of that meaning of the name. [[Ancient Assyrians|Assyrians]] at the time used siege machines with animal names; it is possible that the Trojan Horse was such.<ref>[[Michael Wood (historian)|Michael Wood]], in his book "In search of the Trojan war" ISBN 978-0520215993 (which was shown on BBC TV as a series)</ref> |
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It has also been suggested that the Trojan Horse actually represents an earthquake that occurred between the wars that could have weakened Troy's walls and left them open for attack.<ref>[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1997/november12/nurearthquake.html Earthquakes toppled ancient cities: 11/12/97<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The deity [[Poseidon]] had a triple function as a god of the sea, of horses, and of earthquakes. Structural damage on Troy VI – its location being the same as that represented in Homer's ''Iliad'' and the artifacts found there suggesting it was a place of great trade and power – shows signs that there was indeed an earthquake. Generally, though, Troy VIIa is believed to be Homer's Troy (see below)''. |
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Some authors have suggested that the gift was not a horse with warriors hiding inside, but a boat carrying a peace envoy,<ref>See pages 51-52 in''Troy C. 1700-1250 BC,''Nic Fields, Donato Spedaliere & Sarah S. Spedalier, Osprey Publishing, 2004</ref> 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.<ref>See pages 22-23 in ''The fall of Troy in early Greek poetry and art'', Michael John Anderson, Oxford University Press, 1997</ref> |
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==Images== |
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{{Expand section|date=November 2010}} |
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[[File:Mykonos vase.jpg|thumb|300px|The [[Mykonos vase]], with one of the earliest known renditions of the Trojan Horse]] |
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There are three known surviving classical depictions of the Trojan horse. The earliest is on a [[fibula (brooch)|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|Mykonos Vase]].<ref name="Sparks71">{{cite journal|last=Sparks|first=B.A.|title=The Trojan Horse in Classical Art|journal=Greece & Rome|year=1971|month=April|volume=18|series=Second series|issue=1|pages=54–70|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/642388|accessdate=26 October 2010}}</ref><ref name="Caskey76">{{cite journal|last=Caskey|first=Miriam Ervin|title=Notes on Relief Pithoi of the Tenian-Boiotian Group|journal=American Journal of Archaeology|year=1976|month=Winter|volume=80|issue=1|pages=19–41|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/502935|accessdate=26 October 2010}}</ref> Historian [[Michael Wood (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 was in existence prior to the writing of those accounts.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wood|first=Michael|authorlink=Michael Wood (historian)|title=In Search of the Trojan War|year=1985|publisher=BBC books|location=London|isbn=9780563201618|pages=80; 251}}</ref> |
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<!--spacing--> |
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<gallery widths="137px" heights="200px"> |
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File:Troj Horse.JPG|At the [[Istanbul Archaeology Museums|Istanbul Archaeological Museum]] in [[Istanbul]], [[Turkey]] |
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File:Trojanisches Pferd in Ankershagen.jpg|At the [[Schliemann]] Museum in [[Ankershagen]], [[Germany]] |
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File:Trojan_horse_Çanakkale.jpg|From the movie ''[[Troy (film)|Troy]]'' |
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File:Trojan Horse in Stuttgart 2001.jpg|A modern interpretation at the Troja-Ausstellung (Troy Fair) in [[Stuttgart]], [[Germany]] (May 2001) |
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</gallery> |
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==Notes== |
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{{reflist}} |
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==External links== |
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{{Commons-inline|Trojan horse|Trojan horse}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2010}} |
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[[Category:Trojans]] |
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[[Category:Trojan War]] |
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[[Category:Aeneid]] |
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[[Category:Greek mythology]] |
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[[Category:Ancient Greek technology]] |
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[[ar:حصان طروادة]] |
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[[an:Caballo de Troya]] |
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[[be:Траянскі конь]] |
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[[bg:Троянски кон]] |
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[[bs:Trojanski konj (mitologija)]] |
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[[br:Marc'h Troia]] |
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[[ca:Cavall de Troia]] |
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[[cs:Trojský kůň]] |
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[[da:Den trojanske hest]] |
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[[de:Trojanisches Pferd]] |
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[[et:Trooja hobune]] |
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[[el:Δούρειος Ίππος]] |
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[[es:Caballo de Troya]] |
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[[eo:Troja ĉevalo (mitologio)]] |
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[[eu:Troiako Zaldia]] |
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[[fa:اسب تروآ]] |
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[[fr:Cheval de Troie]] |
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[[gl:Cabalo de Troia]] |
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[[ko:트로이 목마]] |
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[[hi:ट्रोजन हॉर्स]] |
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[[hr:Trojanski konj]] |
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[[ia:Cavallo de Troia]] |
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[[is:Trójuhestur]] |
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[[it:Cavallo di Troia]] |
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[[he:סוס טרויאני]] |
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[[ka:ტროის ცხენი]] |
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[[hu:Trójai faló]] |
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[[mk:Тројански коњ]] |
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[[arz:حصان طرواده]] |
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[[nl:Paard van Troje]] |
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[[ja:トロイアの木馬]] |
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[[no:Den trojanske hest]] |
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[[nn:Den trojanske hesten]] |
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[[pl:Koń trojański]] |
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[[pt:Cavalo de Troia]] |
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[[ro:Calul troian]] |
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[[ru:Троянский конь]] |
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[[simple:Trojan Horse]] |
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[[sk:Trójsky kôň (história)]] |
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[[sl:Trojanski konj]] |
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[[sr:Тројански коњ (митологија)]] |
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[[fi:Troijan puuhevonen]] |
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[[sv:Trojanska hästen]] |
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[[tl:Kabayo ng Troya]] |
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[[te:ట్రోజన్ హార్స్]] |
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[[tr:Truva atı]] |
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[[uk:Троянський кінь]] |
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[[vi:Con ngựa thành Troia]] |
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[[zh:特洛伊木馬]] |
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