Sinon, a Greek spy, has allowed himself to be captured, won the pity of the Trojans with a hard-luck story and spun them a line about the wooden horse. One could respect Sinon’s courage, but we see from the lying and sacrilegious oaths he swears that he is unworthy. The horse is, he says, an offering to atone for an exploit by Odysseus and Diomedes which has slighted the Goddess Minerva. Calchas the seer has prophesied to the Greeks that they must seek new omens at Argos to have any chance of success at Troy, and now they are homeward bound. The horse has been built so large because the Greeks do not want the Tojans to get it into the city and reap the good fortune that would follow. Sinon’s story, and the death of Laocoon, convince the Trojans to breach their walls to bring in the horse.
See the illustrated blog post here.
To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.
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