Hector, King Priam's son, who had been slain by Achilles earlier in the Trojan War, appeared to Aeneas in a dream and told him that all was lost, and that he should take Troy's gods of hearth and household - the Penatës - and seek a new city for them. The Trojans were helpless against the assault, and Troy was soon in flames. That night, while the weary Trojans slept, Sinon released the Greek warriors hidden inside the horse and opened Troy's gates to the remaining Greek forces, which had sailed back to Troy's shores from Tenedos. She killed Laocoön and his sons because she wanted the Trojans to believe that Sinon's story was true and bring the wooden horse within Troy's walls. The real intention of Minerva, who, according to tradition, helped build the wooden horse, was to destroy Troy. Hoping to make reparation for Laocoön's lack of reverence for Minerva and win the goddess's favor, the Trojans followed Sinon's advice and brought the horse into the city. The Trojans began to believe Sinon's explanation and were finally convinced of his story's truthfulness after two serpents rose out of the sea and crushed Laocoön and his two sons in their coils, an event that the onlookers regarded as rightful punishment for Laocoön's having attacked the horse. Sinon then said that if the wooden horse were harmed in any way, the goddess would destroy Troy for its impiety, but if it were brought within the city's walls, Troy would conquer Greece. Minerva would be pacified only when her sacred image was returned from Greece to Troy with due ceremonial reverence. In reality, he was lying: He had been left behind by his fellow Greeks to deceive the Trojans and prepare for the Greek invasion of Troy.ĭeliberately confusing the Trojans, Sinon explained that the purpose of the horse was to appease Minerva, who was angry with the Greeks because they had stolen her sacred image, the Palladium, from her temple in Troy the Greeks had sailed home with the Palladium but would return with it in time and again besiege Troy. With them was a Greek captive, Sinon, who said that he had deserted Ulysses's army after learning that he was to be sacrificed in order to guarantee a favorable homeward wind for the Greeks.
Of course, the Trojans could not.Īt this point, shepherds came to the crowd gathered around the wooden horse. Defiantly hurling a spear into the horse's side, he implored his countrymen to remember the last time the Greeks gave a gift to Troy without deception being involved.
AENEID BOOK 2 SCANSION FULL
Laocoön, a priest of Neptune, warned the Trojans that the wooden horse was either full of soldiers or a war machine. Some wanted to bring the wooden horse into the city others, rightly suspicious, wanted to destroy it. In truth, they filled the horse with nine of their best warriors, including Ulysses, and then hid themselves in their ships behind the offshore island of Tenedos.įooled by this stratagem, Troy's citizens believed that the Greeks had indeed sailed home. He describes how, in the tenth year of the Trojan War, the Greeks constructed an enormous wooden horse, which they then rumored was intended as an offering to the goddess Minerva in order to gain her protection on their voyage home. Reluctantly accepting Dido's invitation to tell his story, Aeneas sorrowfully begins with an account of the fall of Troy.
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