In the Aeneid, the ancient Greek poet Vergil tells of the ten-year war fought by the Greeks and Trojans. Finally, with sophisticated cunning, the Greeks built a wooden horse so big that a group of soldiers could hide in it. The Trojans found this horse outside the gate to their city one day, and they imagined that the Greeks had left it behind as a sacrificial offering to the Trojan gods. They believed the Greeks had left after ten years of war.
The print shows the Trojans at the crucial moment as they drag the wooden horse in through the gate into the city. They ought not to have done that! The Aeneid tells of the following night: “The horse, standing towering and huge in the citadel, releases armed men from its belly; Sinon has vanquished and gloats and starts fires everywhere. Through the gaping gate come regiments, all the thousands who came from great Mycenae …” Sinon was a Greek, but he had been left behind in Troy. He let the Greeks out of the wooden horse, after which they opened the city gate for the Greek army. Troy was conquered.
