Trojan Horse of Western History. Oleg Matveychev

      If you asked a man from the street about his knowledge of the Trojan War, you would hear a quite confused story based on children books about the myths of ancient Greece, the song Cassandra by Vysotsky, a couple of films like the recent Hollywood Troy, or some clichés from block calendars about the heel of Achilles, the Trojan horse and the apple of discord. Even though these sources often contradict each other, the consumer’s mind still manages to put different facts together consistently.

      So, the story goes that once upon a time there lived King Priam in the city of Troy. After his son Paris was born, the king heard a prophecy that Paris would bring the great empire to an end. Priam ordered to kill the baby, but the tender-hearted servants disobeyed him and left the boy on Mount Ida. A shepherd saved Paris and raised him, and taught him the basics of his trade. One day Paris, who was also called Alexander, was grazing, say, sheep in the mountain pasture, and there he saw three goddesses – Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked the young shepherd to resolve their argument as to which of them was more beautiful. (An apple inscribed “for the fairest” was tossed in the midst of the feast, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute among the goddesses about who that apple was intended for). Hera promised Paris power over people, if he chose her; Athena promised him wisdom beyond other mortals had; Aphrodite promised him great love. After some consideration Paris selected Aphrodite, who showed him an image of the most beautiful woman in the water – his wife-to-be.

      Then Paris went to Troy, where he was recognized as the King’s son. One day Priam and his sons Hector and Paris went to Lacedaemon, the capital of Sparta, to meet Menelaus, the king of that place, to conclude a new trade agreement. Having reached an agreement, the kings arranged a sumptuous feast, and it was then that Paris saw Helen. Helen was the wife of King Menelaus, but Paris realized that she was the very beauty he had seen in the water and couldn’t have left without her. The circumstances were the best for his solution. The following day, Menelaus left for Crete on business. As they say, while the cat is away, the mice will play. Charmed by handsome Paris, Helen sailed with him to Troy, where the lovers legitimated their marriage.

      In any epoch abduction of one’s wife has been an inconceivable insult. In the Trojan era, it was casus belli. Upon returning to Sparta, Menelaus became furious. He summoned the kings of friendly states, and they decided to attack Troy with all their joint military power. They outfitted one thousand ships. Tens of thousands of soldiers in copper helmets with horse-hair crests believed they would engage in a blitzkrieg and reap some good reward. Among them were the heroes Achilles and Ajax, the artful Odysseus, the old wise Nestor, and they were led by the brother of Menelaus, the ferocious King Agamemnon. Though, weather conditions did not favour their campaign. There was no leading wind, and thus, Agamemnon ventured upon an awful deed of killing his daughter Iphigenia to favour the gods. Upon spilling her blood on the sacrificial stone, the wind changed, and the vast Greek fleet headed towards the Trojan coast.

      Counting on an immediate victory was a mistake, though, as the Trojans avidly defended their city tooth and nail, refusing to surrender the abducted queen. The siege of this city continued for nine years, with no side able to gain the upper hand. However, in the tenth year Achilles and Agamemnon had a row, and that became the turning point in the course of this war. During one of the raids to a suburb of Troy Agamemnon captured the daughter of the priest Chryses. The grieving father asked the King to release his daughter taken hostage, and having been refused, he pleaded with Apollo to curse the Greek army with pestilence, which Apollo did. The terrible illness took down the Achaeans, and Achilles on behalf of the public demanded that their leader returned Chryseis to her father. Chryses gathered his darling, and Agamemnon received Achilles’ prisoner Briseis for compensation. Achilles felt hurt, got angry and refused to participate in battles. He asked Zeus to take revenge upon Agamemnon for this loss by allowing the Trojans to score military success. Zeus met his request, and the Trojans led by King Priam’s son Hector managed to make their way to the Greek vessels and to start a small fire there. Patroclus, the best and only friend of Achilles, engaged in battle with Hector and was killed. Broken hearted, Achilles put aside all his pointless and minor villainous acts and went for revenge. Having taken out thousands of Trojans on his way, he forced his way towards Hector, challenged him to fight and killed him in view of Priam, watching the combat from the fortress walls. Then he tied the opponent’s body to a chariot and dragged it three times around the fortress walls.

      Fig. 4. Lucas Cranach the Elder. The Judgment of Paris (1528).

      Fig. 5. Franz Matsch. Triumph of Achilles (1892).

      At night, Priam quietly came to Achilles’ camp and begged the Champion to return his son’s body. Shocked by the old man’s courage and torn by guilt for his friend’s death, Achilles agreed to his request.

      However, the death of the best warrior of Ilion didn’t profit the Greeks at all, especially since they also lost their best fighter very soon after that. Paris managed to shoot Achilles with an arrow in his only weak point, his heel. Then Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, devised an artful trick. He proposed to make a huge wooden horse to be gifted to the Trojans, and to put the best Greek soldiers inside it, and to take the fleet from view of the fortress defenders. After the Trojans awoke, they would see the horse and drag it inside the city, after which the soldiers of that special squad would

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