[733] Argument. Iliad. Minor, p. 18, Düntz.; Arktinus ap. Dionys. Hal. i. 69; Homer, Odyss. iv. 246; Quint. Smyrn. x. 354: Virgil, Æneid, ii. 164, and the 9th Excursus of Heyne on that book.
Compare with this legend about the Palladium, the Roman legend respecting the Ancylia (Ovid, Fasti, III. 381).
[734] Odyss. iv. 275; Virgil, Æneid, ii. 14; Heyne, Excurs. 3. ad Æneid. ii. Stesichorus, in his Ἰλίου Πέρσις, gave the number of heroes in the wooden horse as one hundred (Stesichor. Fragm. 26, ed. Kleine; compare Athenæ. xiii. p. 610).
[735] Odyss. viii. 492; xi. 522. Argument of the Ἰλίου Πέρσις of Arktinus, p. 21. Düntz. Hydin. f. 108-135. Bacchylidês and Euphorion ap. Servium ad Virgil. Æneid. ii. 201.
Both Sinon and Laocoôn came originally from the old epic poem of Arktinus, though Virgil may perhaps have immediately borrowed both them, and other matters in his second book, from a poem passing under the name of Pisander (see Macrob. Satur. v. 2; Heyne, Excurs. 1. ad Æn. ii.; Welcker, Der Episch. Kyklus, v. 97). We cannot give credit either to Arktinus or Pisander for the masterly specimen of oratory which is put into the mouth of Sinon in the Æneid.
In Quintus Smyrnæus (xii. 366), the Trojans torture and mutilate Sinon to extort from him the truth: his endurance, sustained by the inspiration of Hêrê, is proof against the extremity of suffering, and he adheres to his false tale. This is probably an incident of the old epic, though the delicate taste of Virgil, and his sympathy with the Trojans, has induced him to omit it. Euphorion ascribed the proceedings of Sinon to Odysseus: he also gave a different cause for the death of Laocoôn (Fr. 33-36. p. 55, ed. Düntz., in the Fragments of Epic Poets after Alexander the Great). Sinon is ἐταῖρος Ὀδυσσέως in Pausan. x. 27, 1.
[736] Odyss. viii. 515; Argument of Arktinas, ut sup.; Euripid. Hecub. 903; Virg. Æn. vi. 497; Quint. Smyrn. xiii. 35-229; Leschês ap. Pausan. x. 27, 2; Diktys, v. 12. Ibykus and Simonidês also represented Deiphobus as the ἀντεράστης Ἑλένης (Schol. Hom. Iliad. xiii. 517).
The night-battle in the interior of Troy was described with all its fearful details both by Leschês and Arktinus: the Ἰλίου Πέρσις of the latter seems to have been a separate poem, that of the former constituted a portion of the Ilias Minor (see Welcker, Der Epische Kyklus, p. 215): the Ἰλίου Πέρσις by the lyric poets Sakadas and Stesichorus probably added many new incidents. Polygnôtus had painted a succession of the various calamitous scenes, drawn from the poem of Leschês, on the walls of the leschê at Delphi, with the name written over each figure (Pausan. x. 25-26).
Hellanikus fixed the precise day of the month on which the capture took place (Hellan. Fr. 143-144), the twelfth day of Thargeliôn.
[737] Æschyl. Agamemn. 527.—