The Trojan Horse

The horse is the most famous stratagem in Greek myth. The Achaeans build a huge wooden horse, hide selected warriors inside, and leave it on the beach as an offering to Athena while their fleet sails out of sight. The Trojans, persuaded that the war is over, bring the horse into the city.

The Odyssey refers to the episode in the songs of Demodocus and in Menelaus’s account, and it assumes that its audience knows the story. The Iliad ends before the horse is built, so the poem’s own narrative never reaches the trick that completes the war.

At night the hidden men climb out, open the gates, and signal the fleet. The Achaeans enter Troy and sack it. The tradition tells of the killing of Priam, the enslavement of the women, the death of Astyanax, and the fires that destroy the city.

The horse is a story about the limits of force and the power of deception. It also raises the question that the Odyssey never fully answers: whether a victory won by a trick is as honourable as one won in battle. Odysseus’s cunning is the cause of the victory, and it is also the quality that makes him dangerous.