The Trojan Horse: How Odysseus Ended a 10-Year War With a Wooden Ruse

Experience the myths of Greece and Rome as you would a binge-worthy drama series, here at the Huam-dong Art Museum. This article is written in a storytelling style based on multiple reference works, with minor adaptations, omissions, and imaginative embellishments for narrative flow. Subscribe to the reporter's feed to enjoy a rich art story every weekend. Likes and comments are a great help in producing and distributing content.

*A note to returning readers: this is the story I most wanted to tell first, and the series I most wanted to bring to a close. This article also covers the events immediately preceding Christopher Nolan's film "Odyssey."*

Could every word this man said be trusted?

The mood was unsettled. One thing, at least, was certain: the Greek ships and soldiers had vanished without a trace. The war had ground on for ten years. Both sides were worn out. Countless heroes had fallen, and far more ordinary soldiers besides. Yet through it all, Troy's walls had never wavered.

*Well then. If that's how it is....* True, the Greek coalition still had seasoned veterans in its ranks. But morale had been sinking day by day, scraping the bottom. A mutiny would not have been surprising. So perhaps they had no choice but to slip away in the dead of night, leaving behind only a votive offering to the gods as they set off on the long road home. *"People of Troy, burn this horse. These are Greeks — even bearing gifts, they must be treated with suspicion."* Just as the mood was beginning to soften, someone cried out in alarm. The crowd had been moving toward consensus — take the horse as a trophy — when the voice rang out. It was Laocoon, a Trojan priest. The old man had seized a spear himself and thrust it, in plain sight of everyone, into the horse's belly. A hollow, resonant sound rang out — almost, for a moment, like a human groan. *"You see? Something is not right—"* At that very instant, something strange happened. Two enormous sea serpents rose from the waves. Without hesitation they fell upon Laocoon and his two sons, coiling around them and pouring venom into their bodies. All three suffocated and died before they could do a thing. *"The gods have punished Laocoon for desecrating the sacred horse!"* A roar went up from somewhere in the crowd, and it could only spread from there.

*"To Hector — the warrior who defended Troy to the last!"*

That night, the Trojans celebrated everywhere: in the squares and alleyways, in homes and taverns. Wine barrels did not merely roll — they seemed to float. Cups clinked in honor of Hector, Troy's greatest hero. Agamemnon, commander-in-chief of the Greek coalition, was mocked without mercy. The crowd jeered at Menelaus and Diomedes, the fearsome warriors who had fought on the Greek side, and cursed Odysseus above all — the man who had tormented their city with every trick imaginable. The horse they had hauled in with such effort was placed on a platform at the city's center. They had knocked down part of the city gate to bring it through. No matter. Peace was coming. The Trojans had always believed this day would arrive, and one pivotal moment had sealed that belief: the death of Achilles, the demigod who had been the Greek coalition's worst nightmare. When word came that the invincible Achilles had closed his eyes for the last time, Troy had celebrated then too. After that, the nights had grown easier, war or no war. The fear that the gates might be breached, that the walls might crumble — all of it could be set aside. What had truly dissolved the Trojans' wariness toward the horse was not Sinon's testimony, nor the appearance of the giant serpents. The deepest reason was belief. The Trojan War had been a ten-year test of endurance. The belief that they had endured it, that the Greeks had not — or more precisely, that without Achilles, the Greeks simply could not have held on.

According to several traditions, the end of Achilles — the brightest star of the Greek coalition — was a hollow one.

Not long before his death, Achilles had witnessed a Trojan ceremony: the funeral of Hector, the Trojan commander-in-chief he had killed with his own hands. His hatred for Hector, who had slain his dearest friend Patroclus, had not faded. Yet learning how deeply Hector had been loved — by gods and family, by soldiers and citizens alike — had surprised him. Even in an enemy, that was something worth respecting. And so he had paid his own minimal respects.

That day, Achilles happened to catch sight of a woman.

She was clutching Hector's coffin and weeping. She was Polyxena, one of Hector's younger sisters. A tremor ran through Achilles. The feeling creeping up on him, oblivious to the moment, was love. In the end, Achilles found himself slipping away to visit Polyxena's private garden. And more than that — he made a promise: *"If you take my hand for life, I will bring peace to Troy myself."* "Meet me again at the temple of Apollo. Swear it to me there." Polyxena said this without lifting her head.

When Achilles arrived at the temple, heart full of anticipation, the one waiting for him was not Polyxena — it was her brother, Paris. The archer Paris knew Achilles' weakness: the tendon just below the heel, what we now call the Achilles' heel. The information had come directly from Apollo, the sun god, who had cherished Hector. In truth, Polyxena had never felt a thing for Achilles. To her, this man was nothing more than the murderer who had killed and humiliated Hector — the person she had admired most in the world. That was why she had told Paris everything, so he could arrange the assassination without delay. A master archer proved himself a master archer. Paris's poisoned arrow pierced Achilles in his one vulnerable spot. He collapsed without even a cry and died on the spot. Measured against nearly ten years of legendary deeds, it was a strikingly hollow and absurd end. Some other traditions hold that Apollo himself took up the bow and killed Achilles — a version accompanied by the story that Ajax the Great and Odysseus threw themselves into danger to protect his body. There is also an account in which Polyxena had genuinely come to feel affection for Achilles, but Paris, sensing this, acted entirely on his own.

Achilles had cut down enemy after enemy fighting for Troy — among them Hector himself, Cycnus the son of Poseidon, the Amazon queen Penthesilea whose father was Ares, god of war, and Memnon the Ethiopian king born of the dawn goddess Eos. His death was the news that every member of Troy's royal family, every citizen, every general and foot soldier had prayed for. "The Greek coalition has nothing left but cowards!" It was no wonder a mood of celebration swept through Troy.

And the misfortunes did not stop there.

The Greek coalition's run of bad luck continued. After Achilles, they lost the one warrior who had come closest to matching him: Ajax the Great. According to sources including the tragedy "Ajax" by the ancient Athenian poet Sophocles, the Greeks fell into conflict over who should inherit the fallen Achilles' armor. The contest came down to Ajax and Odysseus. Ajax could not match Odysseus in the art of persuasion and ultimately lost. Consumed by humiliation, he convinced himself that the other commanders had all sided with Odysseus and swore revenge. His plan was simple and brutal: kill the senior commanders — Agamemnon and Menelaus — with his own hands. He drew his sword and struck Agamemnon from behind, driving the blade deep in an ambush-style attack. "This is the price for disrespecting me." Just as he was about to storm Odysseus' camp as well, a different world suddenly appeared before him. When he rubbed his eyes, he found himself standing in the livestock pen inside the camp. What soaked him was not human blood but the blood of sheep. It had all been a hallucination planted by Athena. The only things he had actually killed were a few sheep, not Agamemnon. When his senses returned, the shame was unbearable. That was why he took his own life. For the Trojans, it was an unexpected joy — one that rivaled even the death of Achilles.

For nearly ten years, the Greek coalition had maintained a narrow edge in the Trojan War by putting Achilles and Ajax at the front.

That was no longer possible. Now it was the Greeks who had their backs against the wall. Agamemnon called every commander and soldier together for a council. Opinion split sharply between pressing on with the war and turning back at once. *"I would like to share a prophecy I received from the gods."* The prophet Calchas stepped forward. Silence fell instantly — and rightly so. His words had never once been wrong. Calchas then recited the one and only way the Greek coalition could take the city of Troy. It was....

Neoptolemus asked. Odysseus nodded. "How can I trust you — the people who couldn't even protect my father?" Neoptolemus shot back. He was still a boy, barely past the age when a voice begins to change. Yet his skill with spear and sword, and his command of a war chariot, were already uncanny. *...The looks and talent of Achilles' son, without a doubt.* That was Odysseus' private thought. "Shouldn't you avenge the enemy who killed your father?" Odysseus said aloud. "Think of it not as going to help us, but as going to fight them." Those words shook Neoptolemus. Odysseus read the shift in the room and pressed forward immediately. He promised the boy his father's armor and all his battle honors. He promised him the hand of Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, along with a vast dowry. Before long, Neoptolemus found himself aboard a ship with Odysseus.

The ship, which had briefly left the war behind, was now heading back toward Troy. On the return voyage, Odysseus made one stop: the island of Lemnos. There lived Philoctetes — a warrior who had inherited the bow and arrows of Heracles himself, the greatest of all heroes. Philoctetes had originally been one of the Greek coalition's foremost archers when the expedition set out. During the voyage, however, he had suffered a wound; the flesh rotted and the stench became unbearable, and he had been abandoned on the island — a decision, it should be noted, that Odysseus himself had led. Philoctetes initially refused Odysseus' request to rejoin the fight. Having lived alone on the island for nearly ten years, that was only natural. But that night, a vision of Heracles — the hero Philoctetes had revered above all — appeared and urged him to join the war. Faced with that, he had little choice but to board the ship. The student of the previous generation's greatest hero, and the son of the current generation's greatest hero: with these two remarkable figures, the Greek coalition was able to lift its spirits once more.

Meanwhile, Odysseus and Diomedes also managed to slip inside Troy and steal the Palladium — a sacred statue of Athena. During the infiltration they came face to face with Helen in a heart-stopping moment, but for reasons of her own she stepped forward and hid them both. Separately, the Greek coalition assembled a special unit and retrieved the bones of Pelops from Elis (believed to correspond to present-day Pisa). Pelops was an ancient figure who stood several generations above Agamemnon in his lineage.

These were the conditions for Greek victory that the prophet Calchas had laid down — a puzzle that Odysseus had been methodically piecing together.

Some traditions hold that it was not Calchas but Helenus — one of Troy's own princes — who delivered this prophecy. Helenus also served as a Trojan priest at the time and was said to possess remarkable prophetic gifts. According to this account, Odysseus happened to capture him outside the city walls (one version suggests Helenus had stormed out in a rage after quarreling with his brother Deiphobus over who had the prior claim to Helen as a wife after Paris died), and through a combination of persuasion and threats managed to extract the information from him.

The war's central figure was now Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.

Neoptolemus' chariot shattered the Trojan lines like glass. Looking almost like Achilles reborn, he was a new terror, a new nightmare. Philoctetes' arrows flew without missing. The greatest prize was the life of Paris. It was a duel between the finest archers on each side. The poisoned arrows given by Heracles tore through human flesh; the bronze arrows forged by human hands did nothing but slice empty air. Poison spread through Paris' body. He thought of the wife he had lived with before he ever met Helen — Oenone, a nymph skilled in healing herbs. Paris pulled himself from the battlefield and made his way to the meadow where Oenone lived, pleading with her to draw the poison from his wound. She refused. She had once told him to come to her if he was ever hurt — but that promise had only ever been valid as long as he had not forgotten her, had not cast her aside. *...Nearly ten years of silence, and now this?* Paris was turned away and died on the road back to the palace.

The Greek coalition's momentum surged like a spear raised high. But only so high.

Something stood higher still. The walls said to have been built by the gods themselves — Poseidon and Apollo among them. The walls that every Trojan citizen trusted and leaned on as they would a god, as they would the departed Hector. Troy's city walls, towering as if to pierce the sky. Of the five prophetic conditions, one alone remained unfulfilled: the destruction of the lintel of Troy's city gate. The Trojans' belief — that they could endure, that the Greeks could not — seemed to find its answer in those walls, which refused to crack or crumble. Troy's strategy of locking its gates and running out the clock had held. After ten years, the Trojan War looked set to end in Troy's favor. Had Odysseus not been among the Greeks — he was the most dangerous of those still alive, more so than Agamemnon or Menelaus, more so than Neoptolemus or Philoctetes.

In the deepest hour before dawn, the cries of "Troy has won!" finally died away.

Every Trojan, drunk on the wine of victory, had collapsed into sleep. The joy of a war finally ended, the satisfaction of having brought the enemy's own votive offering inside their walls — it had numbed the city's every sense.

Then, at that moment, a small shadow moved in silence. It stopped before the great wooden horse standing at the city's center. *Knock.* A hand tapped the surface. *Knock, knock, knock.* A few seconds later, another rap, like a second round of knocking. *"...Sinon?"* A hoarse voice came from inside — Odysseus, unmistakably resonating from within the horse's belly. "Everyone is asleep," Sinon said. The horse suddenly shuddered as if standing on a fault line. A crack split down the middle, and several ropes dropped down. What followed was a stream of hulking figures pouring out of the horse, sliding down the ropes — Odysseus, Menelaus and Diomedes, Neoptolemus and the prophet Calchas. The Greek coalition's most carefully chosen elite: a force of some 20 to 30 men. A platoon-sized unit had landed in full battle gear. The lintel of Troy's supposedly impregnable city gate had already been knocked through by the horse's head.

In truth, it had all been Odysseus' scheme.

Earlier, Odysseus had gathered the most skilled craftsmen in the Greek coalition and set them to work building a great wooden horse — a strange structure, solid on the outside and hollow within. He then selected the strongest and most agile warriors, himself included, and hid them inside. *"Load every soldier onto the ships as if fleeing overnight. Lie in wait behind the nearest island, and when you see smoke rising from Troy's walls, come back ashore and advance."* Before climbing into the horse, Odysseus gave these instructions to commander-in-chief Agamemnon. "We will find a way to open the gates from inside," he added. Finally, Odysseus summoned his sharp-eared cousin Sinon — a slight soldier — and told him the horse's true purpose and how it was to be used. Some traditions hold that Odysseus did not fully trust Sinon either, and deliberately deceived him before having him expelled. The idea was that Sinon would find a way to survive and would then freely pour out to the Trojans everything he believed he had seen and overheard — without knowing himself where the truth ended and the deception began.

Cutting through the night and sleep, through dreams and wine, the Greek elite unit threw open Troy's gates with ease.

Commander-in-chief Agamemnon stood waiting at the open gates. Soldiers from every nation in the Greek coalition — Mycenae and Lacedaemon, Phthiotis and Ithaca — were packed in behind him. They straightened their helmets, drew their swords and raised their spears. They charged like beasts, releasing ten years of pent-up fury. They cut down and ran through everything within reach. They violated and burned everything in sight. On that night when trust was shattered, Troy — its walls, its people — could do nothing. They simply died. They were seized without resistance and fled without strength. A clean death by the sword was, for some, the best they could hope for. Neoptolemus killed Priam, king of Troy. Menelaus slew Deiphobus, who had taken Helen as his wife after Paris' death. Countless Trojan princes and princesses were killed or captured. The young son of Hector, Troy's former commander-in-chief, was thrown from the city walls.

And finally, the law of Zeus that humanity had upheld since time immemorial — the principle of "xenia" (Xenia), which can be summed up as "treat a stranger as you yourself would wish to be treated" — was trampled utterly underfoot.

The reason is plain: King Priam of Troy had long since welcomed the prisoner Sinon as a guest.

He gave Sinon clothing and food, and guaranteed his safety and future for life. No one objected. No one even thought to. This was a custom of hospitality passed down as something no one could break. Having received such welcome, a guest in turn was bound not to betray the trust placed in him. This was not a matter of education. It was as natural and inevitable as sleeping when tired or eating when hungry — a given, an unspoken promise. Yet Sinon broke it. More precisely, Odysseus — who had foreseen even the moment when Priam would take Sinon in as a guest — put Sinon up to breaking it. And so humanity crossed into an age of distrust, where words and oaths could no longer be believed. It was as if another of Pandora's jars had been opened.

Of course, ten years earlier Paris had also turned his back on Menelaus' hospitality and taken Helen's hand. But in that case there had been direct divine intervention, which makes a strict comparison difficult.

The long war was over.

Helen returned to Menelaus. Agamemnon claimed the Trojan princess Cassandra as his captive; Neoptolemus took Hector's wife Andromache. Beyond them, the Trojan queen Hecuba and many other survivors were destined to be hauled onto ships as spoils of war. The Greek coalition prepared to go home. A few heroes stayed behind, but most boarded their ships and set sail. And as the story goes, one hero in particular spent another ten years wandering through every manner of experience on the way back to his homeland. The man who had drifted from Paris to Helen, from Hector to Achilles, and who had somewhere along the way naturally become the story's central figure — Odysseus. Sadly for him, his trials were only just beginning.

Homer followed his account of the Trojan War's climax in the "Iliad" with another volume tracing Odysseus' journey home. That work is the "Odyssey." The story was not yet finished.

Homer, Iliad, Soup (publisher)

Virgil, Aeneid, Soup (publisher)

Homer, Odyssey, Eulyoo Publishing

Stephen Fry, "Stephen Fry's Greek Myths: The Trojan War," Hyeonamsa

Sophocles, Aias, Legare Street Press