The terrified Trojans regarded this awful event as a punishment sent by the gods upon Laocoon for insulting Minerva by casting his spear at her gift, which they now believed the horse to be. They therefore resolved to take the huge figure into the city in spite of the advice of Cassandra, who also warned them that it would bring ruin upon Troy. And so they made a great breach in the walls, for none of their gates were large enough to admit the vast image, and fastening strong ropes to its feet they dragged it into the citadel. Then they decorated the temples with garlands of green boughs, and spent the remainder of the day in festivity and rejoicing.
But in the dead of the night, when they were all sunk in deep repose, the treacherous Sinon drew the bolts from the trapdoor in the side of the wooden horse, and out came the Greek warriors, rejoicing at the success of their stratagem.
Sinon next hurried down to the beach, and there kindled a fire as a signal to his countrymen on the ships. They knew what it meant, for it was part of the plan that had been agreed on. Quickly plying their oars, they soon reached the shore, and, marching across the plain, the Greeks poured in thousands into the streets, through the breach that had been made in the walls.
The Trojans, startled from their sleep by the noise, understood at once what had happened. Hastily they rushed to arms, and, led and encouraged by Æneas and other chiefs, they fought valiantly to drive out the enemy, but all their valor was in vain. Troy was at last taken. The victorious Greeks swept through the city, dealing death and destruction around them. King Priam was slain by Pyrrhus, at the foot of the altar in one of the temples, to which he fled for safety. His son Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris, was slain by Menelaus. The Spartan king, believing that what his wife had done had been decreed by the Fates and the will of the gods, pardoned her and took her with him to his ships. The women of the Trojan royal family were carried off as slaves.
Æneas, with his father Anchises and his son I-uʹlus, escaped from the city, and sailed from Troas with a fleet and a number of warlike followers. After many adventures by sea and land, which the Roman poet, Verʹgil, tells about in his poem called the Æ-neʹid, he reached Italy. There he established a settlement, and his descendants, it is said, were the founders of Rome.
Having completed their work of destruction and carried off to their ships all the riches of Troy, the Greeks set fire to the city, and in a few hours nothing remained but a mass of smouldering ruins. So ended the famous Trojan War. The prophecy of the soothsayer, Æsacus, at the birth of Paris, was fulfilled. Paris had brought destruction upon his family and country.
Captive Andromache.
Painting by Lord Leighton.