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.
[Illustration: CAPTIVE ANDROMACHE.
_Painting by Lord Leighton._]