After Dido’s banquet in the royal palace of Carthage, Aeneas has agreed to her request to tell the story of the fall of Troy and the years of his wanderings with his Trojan comrades-in-arms. He has just embarked on the episode of the Trojan horse, and is recalling how King Priam, and the Trojans were ticked into bringing it into the city by Sinon, who claims to hate the Greeks and narrowly to have escaped death at their hands as a human sacrifice. In fact, he is a Greek agent, and a very skilful one.
The illustration is a first-century CE wall painting from Pompeii, showing the Trojans bringing the horse into their city.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.