The Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse was such a great strategy by the Greeks and such a bad decision by the Trojans that it is one of the most well-known stories of ancient history. It spelled such a decisive defeat for the Trjoans that the term Trojan Horse has come to be synonymous for any military strategy that tricks a target into allowing a foe into a secure space. The story of the Trojan Horse comes from a few sources, namely the Aeneid of Virgil and it is referenced in Homer’s the Odyssey.
As the story goes Odysseus thought that he could trick the Trojans into letting a Greek force into the city by giving them a gift. So in three days Odysseus and his men built a massive horse in which Odysseus and 30 of his best men hid inside. One man stayed outside the horse and the rest of the Greek army boarded a ship and sailed away. The Horse bore the inscription that told the Trojans the Horse was a gift in return for the ship’s safe passage back to Greece. Once the Trojans accepted the horse, the Greeks waited until nightfall. Once darkness fell, the Greek ship sailed back and the men inside the Trojan horse emerged. They quickly overtook the Trojan guards and let the rest of the Greek army into the city.
Historians have long debated whether or not the horse really existed. Some believe that the Horse actually referred to a battering ram that the Greeks used to break down the walls of the city. Others believe that it may have referred to a peace envoy. But with so many accounts of the Trojan Horse and the success of the Greeks against the city of Troy, most still tell the story of the hidden Greeks within the horse that caused the fall of Troy.