Stories Pictures Tell. Book 6

by Flora L. Carpenter

Of course her husband, the King of Sparta, objected. He appealed to all the Grecian princes to help him, and soon a hundred thousand men sailed away in eleven hundred and eighty-six ships across the Ægean Sea, and camped before the walls of Troy. The siege lasted ten years.

Troy was finally taken by stratagem. The Greeks pretended to abandon the siege, leaving behind them a great wooden horse as an offering to Athena (Minerva), goddess of wisdom, and the special defender of citadels.

The Trojans could not find out their reason for building the monster; but while they were talking about it and gazing at it some shepherds brought into the town a young Greek named Sinon, whom they had captured. He told a pitiful story. He said the Greek leader hated him, and had induced the Greek soothsayer to declare that he must be put to death as a sacrifice for their safe return to Greece. He had escaped, and hidden in a swamp until the Greeks had gone.

The Trojans were ready to be kind to any man whom the Greeks hated, and he was set free at once.

“But tell us,” said the king, “why that monster of a horse was built.”

Sinon declared it was a sacrifice to Athena because she was angry with them. He said, “It was made too large to pass through your gates, for they knew that if it was once within your walls it would protect you, and victory would come to you instead of to the Greeks.”

The Trojans believed every word of this, and ordered the huge horse brought within their city, even though they were obliged to take down part of the wall in order to make the opening large enough. That night the treacherous Sinon opened a door in the body of the horse and let out the armed Greeks who were hidden inside. They quietly slipped to the ground by means of a rope, killed the watchmen, and opened the gates to the Greek army which had returned and was waiting outside. A terrible battle followed, in which nearly all the Trojans were killed. Helen was taken back to Greece.

In Homer’s Odyssey he tells the adventures of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, during the return journey from Troy. Ulysses had been one of the bravest of the Greek leaders, and was one of the heroes concealed in the wooden horse. The poem is full of vivid description and noble sentiments, both pathetic and sublime, and it stirred the hearts of the Greeks with pride and joy.

It is easy to see the interest in the faces of the listeners in the picture. Partly robed in a rose-colored garment, the reader sits on a chair of marble, holding on his knees a roll of papyrus, from which he is reading to a group of four persons before him. A wreath of bay leaves crowns his head, and as he leans forward his face expresses enthusiasm while he tells the thrilling adventures of the hero of Homer’s story.

In the center of the background we see a woman. On her hair is a crown of daffodils, and in her left hand something resembling a tambourine. She half sits, half reclines, on a marble bench, a resting place which the Greeks always preferred to chairs. On the floor near her, in an attitude of careless ease, sits a young man who is very likely her lover, since he is holding her hand. His face expresses his interest in the story. In his right hand he holds a lyre, which suggests that the company has been listening to music, and that they will enjoy it again after this recital.