THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY.
B.C. 1200
Termination of the siege of Troy.--Appearances observed by the
besieged.--The wooden horse.--Its probable size.--Various opinions
in respect to the disposal of it.--Sudden appearance of a
captive.--His wretched condition.--Sinon's account of the departure
of the Greeks.--His story of the proposed sacrifice.--His
escape.--Priam's address to him.--Sinon's account of the horse.--Effect
produced by Sinon's story.--The serpents and Laocoon.--Ancient statue
of Laocoon.--Its history.--The statue now deposited in the
Vatican.--Description of it.--Effect produced upon the Trojans by
Laocoon's fate.--The Trojans draw the horse into the city.--The Greeks
admitted to the city.--AEneas awakened by the din.--His meeting with
Pantheus.--His surprise and terror.--Adventures of AEneas and
Pantheus.--The tortoise.--The position of AEneas.--The tower.--The
sacking of the palace.--Priam.--Priam and Hecuba at the altar.--The
death of Priam.--The despair of the Trojans.
After the final conquest and destruction of Troy, AEneas, in the course
of his wanderings, stopped, it was said, at Carthage, on his way to
Italy, and there, according to ancient story, he gave the following
account of the circumstances attending the capture and the sacking of
the city, and his own escape from the scene.
One day, after the war had been continued with various success for a
long period of time, the sentinels on the walls and towers of the city
began to observe extraordinary movements in the camp of the besiegers,
which seemed to indicate preparations for breaking up the camp and
going away. Tents were struck. Men were busy passing to and fro,
arranging arms and military stores, as if for transportation. A fleet
of ships was drawn up along the shore, which was not far distant, and
a great scene of activity manifested itself upon the bank, indicating
an approaching embarkation. In a word, the tidings soon spread
throughout the city, that the Greeks had at length become weary of the
protracted contest, and were making preparations to withdraw from the
field. These proceedings were watched, of course, with great interest
from the walls of the city, and at length the inhabitants, to their
inexpressible joy, found their anticipations and hopes, as they
thought, fully realized. The camp of the Greeks was gradually broken
up, and at last entirely abandoned. The various bodies of troops were
drawn off one by one to the shore, where they were embarked on board
the ships, and then sailed away. As soon as this result was made sure,
the Trojans threw open the gates of the city, and came out in
throngs,--soldiers and citizens, men, women and children together,--to
explore the abandoned encampment, and to rejoice over the departure of
their terrible enemies.
The first thing which attracted their attention was an immense wooden
horse, which stood upon the ground that the Greek encampment had
occupied. The Trojans immediately gathered, one and all, around the
monster, full of wonder and curiosity. AEneas, in narrating the story,
says that the image was as large as a mountain; but, as he afterward
relates that the people drew it on wheels within the walls of the
city, and especially as he represents them as attaching the ropes for
this purpose to the _neck_ of the image, instead of to its fore-legs,
which would have furnished the only proper points of attachment if the
effigy had been of any very extraordinary size, he must have had a
very small mountain in mind in making the comparison. Or, which is
perhaps more probable, he used the term only in a vague metaphorical
sense, as we do now when we speak of the waves of the ocean as running
mountain high, when it is well ascertained that the crests of the
billows, even in the most violent and most protracted storms, never
rise more than twenty feet above the general level.
At all events, the image was large enough to excite the wonder of all
the beholders. The Trojan people gathered around it, wholly unable to
understand for what purpose the Greeks could have constructed such a
monster, to leave behind them on their departure from Troy. After the
first emotions of astonishment and wonder which the spectacle awakened
had somewhat subsided, there followed a consultation in respect to
the disposal which was to be made of the prodigy. The opinions on this
point were very various. One commander was disposed to consider the
image a sacred prize, and recommended that they should convey it into
the city, and deposit it in the citadel, as a trophy of victory.
Another, dissenting decidedly from this counsel, said that he strongly
suspected some latent treachery, and he proposed to build a fire under
the body of the monster, and burn the image itself and all
contrivances for mischief which might be contained in it, together. A
third recommended that they should hew it open, and see for themselves
what there might be within. One of the Trojan leaders named Laocoon,
who, just at this juncture, came to the spot, remonstrated loudly and
earnestly against having any thing to do with so mysterious and
suspicious a prize, and, by way of expressing the strong animosity
which he felt toward it, he hurled his spear with all his force
against the monster's side. The spear stood trembling in the wood,
producing a deep hollow sound by the concussion.
What the decision would have been in respect to the disposal of the
horse, if this consultation and debate had gone on, it is impossible
to say, as the farther consideration of the subject was all at once
interrupted, by new occurrences which here suddenly intervened, and
which, after engrossing for a time the whole attention of the company
assembled, finally controlled the decision of the question. A crowd of
peasants and shepherds were seen coming from the mountains, with much
excitement, and loud shouts and outcries, bringing with them a captive
Greek whom they had secured and bound. As the peasants came up with
their prisoner, the Trojans gathered eagerly round them, full of
excitement and threats of violence, all thirsting, apparently, for
their victim's blood. He, on his part, filled the air with the most
piteous lamentations and cries for mercy.
His distress and wretchedness, and the earnest entreaties which he
uttered, seemed at length to soften the hearts of his enemies and
finally, the violence of the crowd around the captive became somewhat
appeased, and was succeeded by a disposition to question him, and hear
what he had to say. The Greek told them, in answer to their
interrogations, that his name was Sinon, and that he was a fugitive
from his own countrymen the Greeks, who had been intending to kill
him. He said that the Greek leaders had long been desirous of
abandoning the siege of Troy, and that they had made many attempts to
embark their troops and sail away, but that the winds and seas had
risen against them on every such attempt, and defeated their design.
They then sent to consult the oracle of Apollo, to learn what was the
cause of the displeasure and hostility thus manifested against them by
the god of the sea. The oracle replied, that they could not depart
from Troy, till they had first made an atoning and propitiatory
offering by the sacrifice of a man, such an one as Apollo himself
might designate. When this answer was returned, the whole army, as
Sinon said, was thrown into a state of consternation. No one knew but
that the fatal designation might fall on him. The leaders were,
however, earnestly determined on carrying the measure into effect.
Ulysses called upon Calchas, the priest of Apollo, to point out the
man who was to die. Calchas waited day after day, for ten days, before
the divine intimation was made to him in respect to the individual
who was to suffer. At length he said that Sinon was the destined
victim. His comrades, Sinon said, rejoicing in their own escape from
so terrible a doom, eagerly assented to the priest's decision, and
immediately made preparations for the ceremony. The altar was reared.
The victim was adorned for the sacrifice, and the garlands, according
to the accustomed usage, were bound upon his temples. He contrived,
however, he said, at the last moment, to make his escape. He broke the
bands with which he had been bound, and fled into a morass near the
shore, where he remained concealed in inaccessible thickets until the
Greeks had sailed away. He then came forth and was at length seized
and bound by the shepherds of the mountains, who found him wandering
about, in extreme destitution and misery. Sinon concluded his tale by
the most piteous lamentations, on his wretched lot. The Trojans, he
supposed, would kill him, and the Greeks, on their return to his
native land, in their anger against him for having made his escape
from them, would destroy his wife and children.
The air and manner with which Sinon told this story seemed so
sincere, and so natural and unaffected were the expressions of
wretchedness and despair with which he ended his narrative, that the
Trojan leaders had no suspicion that it was not true. Their compassion
was moved for the wretched fugitive, and they determined to spare his
life. Priam, the aged king, who was present at the scene, in the midst
of the Trojan generals, ordered the cords with which the peasants had
bound the captive to be sundered, that he might stand before them
free. The king spoke to him, too, in a kind and encouraging manner.
"Forget your countrymen," said he. "They are gone. Henceforth you
shall be one of us. We will take care of you. And now," he
continued, "tell us what this monstrous image means. Why did the
Greeks make it, and why have they left it here?"
Sinon, as if grateful for the generosity with which his life had been
spared, professed himself ready to give his benefactors the fullest
information. He told them that the wooden horse had been built by the
Greeks to replace a certain image of Pallas which they had previously
taken and borne away from Troy. It was to replace this image, Sinon
said, that the Greeks had built the wooden horse; and their purpose
in making the image of this monstrous size was to prevent the
possibility of the Trojans taking it into the city, and thus
appropriating to themselves the benefit of its protecting efficacy and
virtue.
The Trojans listened with breathless interest to all that Sinon said,
and readily believed his story; so admirably well did he counterfeit,
by his words and his demeanor, all the marks and tokens of honest
sincerity in what he said of others, as well of grief and despair in
respect to his own unhappy lot. The current of opinion which had begun
before to set strongly in favor of destroying the horse, was wholly
turned, and all began at once to look upon the colossal image as an
object of sacred veneration, and to begin to form plans for
transporting it within the limits of the city. Whatever remaining
doubts any of them might have felt on the subject were dispelled by
the occurrence of a most extraordinary phenomenon just at this stage
of the affair, which was understood by all to be a divine judgment
upon Laocoon for his sacriligious temerity in striking his spear into
the horse's side. It had been determined to offer a sacrifice to
Neptune. Lots were drawn to determine who should perform the rite. The
lot fell upon Laocoon. He began to make preparations to perform the
duty, assisted by his two young sons, when suddenly two immense
serpents appeared, coming up from the sea. They came swimming over the
surface of the water, with their heads elevated above the waves, until
they reached the shore, and then gliding swiftly along, they advanced
across the plain, their bodies brilliantly spotted and glittering in
the sun, their eyes flashing, and their forked and venomous tongues
darting threats and defiance as they came. The people fled in dismay.
The serpents, disregarding all others, made their way directly toward
the affrighted children of Laocoon, and twining around them they soon
held the writhing and struggling limbs of their shrieking victims
hopelessly entangled in their deadly convolutions.
Laocoon, who was himself at a little distance from the spot, when the
serpents came, as soon as he saw the danger and heard the agonizing
cries of his boys, seized a weapon and ran to rescue them. Instead,
however, of being able to save his children, he only involved himself
in their dreadful fate. The serpents seized him as soon as he came
within their reach, and taking two turns around his neck and two
around his body, and binding in a remorseless grip the forms of the
fainting and dying boys with other convolutions, they raised their
heads high above the group of victims which they thus enfolded, and
hissed and darted out their forked tongues in token of defiance and
victory. When at length their work was done, they glided away and took
refuge in a temple that was near, and coiled themselves up for repose
beneath the feet of the statue of a goddess that stood in the shrine.
The story of Laocoon has become celebrated among all mankind in modern
times by means of a statue representing the catastrophe, which was
found two or three centuries ago among the ruins of an ancient edifice
at Rome. This statue was mentioned by an old Roman writer, Pliny, who
gave an account of it while it yet stood in its place in the ancient
city. He said that it was the work of three artists, a father and two
sons, who combined their industry and skill to carve in one group, and
with immense labor and care, the representation of Laocoon himself,
the two boys, and the two serpents, making five living beings
intertwined intricately together, and all carved from one single block
of marble. On the decline and fall of Rome this statue was lost among
the ruins of the city, and for many centuries it was known to mankind
only through the description of Pliny. At length it was brought to
light again, having been discovered about three centuries ago, under
the ruins of the very edifice in which Pliny had described it as
standing. It immediately became the object of great interest and
attention to the whole world. It was deposited in the Vatican; a great
reward was paid to the owner of the ground on which it was discovered;
drawings and casts of it, without number, have been made; and the
original stands in the Vatican now, an object of universal interest,
as one of the most celebrated sculptures of ancient or modern times.
Laocoon himself forms the center of the group, with the serpents
twined around him, while he struggles, with a fearful expression of
terror and anguish in his countenance, in the vain attempt to release
himself from their hold. One of the serpents has bitten one of the
boys in the side, and the wounded child sinks under the effects of
the poison. The other boy, in an agony of terror, is struggling,
hopelessly, to release his foot from the convolutions with which one
of the serpents has encircled it. The expression of the whole group is
exciting and painful, and yet notwithstanding this, there is combined
with it a certain mysterious grace and beauty which charms every eye,
and makes the composition the wonder of mankind.
But to return to the story. The people understood this awful
visitation to be the judgment of heaven against Laocoon for his
sacrilegious presumption in daring to thrust his spear into the side
of the image before them, and which they were now very sure they were
to consider as something supernatural and divine. They determined with
one accord to take it into the city.
They immediately began to make preparations for the transportation of
it. They raised it from the ground, and fitted to the feet some sort
of machinery of wheels or rollers, suitable to the nature of the
ground, and strong enough to bear the weight of the colossal mass.
They attached long ropes to the neck of the image, and extended them
forward upon the ground, and then brought up large companies of
citizens and soldiers to man them. They arranged a procession,
consisting of the generals of the army, and of the great civil
dignitaries of the state; and in addition to these were groups of
singing boys and girls, adorned with wreaths and garlands, who were
appointed to chant sacred hymns to solemnize the occasion. They
widened the access to the city, too, by tearing down a portion of the
wall so as to open a sufficient space to enable the monster to get in.
When all was ready the ropes were manned, the signal was given, the
ponderous mass began to move, and though it encountered in its
progress many difficulties, obstructions, and delays, in due time it
was safely deposited in the court of a great public edifice within the
city. The wall was then repaired, the day passed away, the night came
on, the gates were shut, and the curiosity and wonder of the people
within being gradually satisfied, they at length dispersed to their
several homes and retired to rest. At midnight the unconscious effigy
stood silent and alone where its worshipers had left it, while the
whole population of the city were sunk in slumber, except the
sentinels who had been stationed as usual to keep guard at the gates,
or to watch upon the towers and battlements above them.
In the mean time the Greek fleet, which had sailed away under pretense
of finally abandoning the country, had proceeded only to the island of
Tenedos, which was about a league from the shore, and there they had
concealed themselves during the day. As soon as night came on they
returned to the main land, and disembarking with the utmost silence
and secrecy, they made their way back again under cover of the
darkness, as near as they dared to come to the gates of the city. In
the mean time Sinon had arisen stealthily from the sleep which he had
feigned to deceive those to whose charge he had been committed, and
creeping cautiously through the streets he repaired to the place where
the wooden horse had been deposited, and there opened a secret door in
the side of the image, and liberated a band of armed and desperate men
who had been concealed within. These men, as soon as they had
descended to the ground and had adjusted their armor, rushed to the
city walls, surprised and killed the sentinels and watchmen, threw
open the gates, and gave the whole body of their comrades that were
lurking outside the walls, in the silence and darkness of the night,
an unobstructed admission.
AEneas was asleep in his house while these things were transpiring. The
house where he lived was in a retired and quiet situation, but he was
awakened from his sleep by distant outcries and din, and springing
from his couch, and hastily resuming his dress, he ascended to the
roof of the house to ascertain the cause of the alarm. He saw flames
ascending from various edifices in the quarter of the city where the
Greeks had come in. He listened. He could distinctly hear the shouts
of men, and the notes of trumpets sounding the alarm. He immediately
seized his armor and rushed forth into the streets, arousing the
inhabitants around him from their slumbers by his shouts, and calling
upon them to arm themselves and follow him.
In the midst of this excitement, there suddenly appeared before him,
coming from the scene of the conflict, a Trojan friend, named
Pantheus, who was hastening away from the danger, perfectly
bewildered with excitement and agitation. He was leading with him his
little son, who was likewise pale with terror. AEneas asked Pantheus
what had happened. Pantheus in reply explained to him in hurried and
broken words, that armed men, treacherously concealed within the
wooden horse, had issued forth from their concealment, and had opened
the gates of the city, and let the whole horde of their ferocious and
desperate enemies in; that the sentinels and guards who had been
stationed at the gates had been killed; and that the Greek troops had
full possession of the city, and were barricading the streets and
setting fire to the buildings on every side. "All is lost," said he,
"our cause is ruined, and Troy is no more."
The announcing of these tidings filled AEneas and those who had joined
him with a species of phrensy. They resolved to press forward into the
combat, and there, if they must perish themselves, to carry down as
many as possible of their enemies with them to destruction. They
pressed on, therefore, through the gloomy streets, guiding their way
toward the scene of action by the glare of the fires upon the sky, and
by the sounds of the distant tumult and din.
They soon found themselves in the midst of scenes of dreadful terror
and confusion,--the scenes, in fact, which are usually exhibited in
the midnight sacking of a city. They met with various adventures
during the time that they continued their desperate but hopeless
resistance. They encountered a party of Greeks, and overpowered and
slew them, and then, seizing the armor which their fallen enemies had
worn, they disguised themselves in it, in hopes to deceive the main
body of the Greeks by this means, so as to mingle among them
unobserved, and thus attack and destroy such small parties as they
might meet without being themselves attacked by the rest. They saw the
princess Cassandra, the young daughter of king Priam, dragged away by
Greek soldiers from a temple where she had sought refuge. They
immediately undertook to rescue her, and were at once attacked both by
the Greek party who had the princess in charge, and also by the Trojan
soldiers, who shot arrows and darts down upon them from the roofs
above, supposing, from the armor and the plumes which they wore, that
they were enemies. They saw the royal palace besieged, and the
_tortoise_ formed for scaling the walls of it. The tumult and din, and
the frightful glare of lurid flames by which the city was illuminated,
a scene of inconceivable confusion and terror.
[Illustration: THE TORTOISE.]
AEneas watched the progress of the assault upon the palace from the top
of certain lofty roofs, to which he ascended for the purpose. Here
there was a slender tower, which had been built for a watch-tower, and
had been carried up to such a height that, from the summit of it, the
watchmen stationed there could survey all the environs of the city,
and on one side look off to some distance over the sea. This tower
AEneas and the Trojans who were with him contrived to cut off at its
base, and throw over upon the throngs of Grecians that were thundering
at the palace gates below. Great numbers were killed by the falling
ruins, and the tortoise was broken down. The Greeks, however, soon
formed another tortoise, by means of which some of the soldiers scaled
the walls, while others broke down the gates with battering rams and
engines; and thus the palace, the sacred and last remaining stronghold
of the city, was thrown open to the ferocious and frantic horde of its
assailants.
The sacking of the palace presented an awful spectacle to the view of
AEneas and his companions, as they looked down upon it from the roofs
and battlements around. As the walls, one after another, fell in under
the resistless blows dealt by the engines that were brought against
them, the interior halls, and the most retired and private apartments,
were thrown open to view--all illuminated by the glare of the
surrounding conflagrations.
Shrieks and wailing, and every other species of outcry that comes from
grief, terror, and despair, arose from within; and such spectators as
had the heart to look continuously upon the spectacle, could see
wretched men running to and fro, and virgins clinging to altars for
protection, and frantic mothers vainly endeavoring to find
hiding-places for themselves and their helpless children.
Priam the king, who was at this time old and infirm, was aroused from
his slumbers by the dreadful din, and immediately began to seize his
armor, and to prepare himself for rushing into the fight. His wife,
however, Hecuba, begged and entreated him to desist. She saw that all
was lost, and that any farther attempts at resistance would only
exasperate their enemies, and render their own destruction the more
inevitable. She persuaded the king, therefore, to give up his weapons
and go with her to an altar, in one of the courts of the palace,--a
place which it would be sacrilege for their enemies to violate--and
there patiently and submissively to await the end. Priam yielded to
the queen's solicitations, and went with her to the place of refuge
which she had chosen;--and the plan which they thus adopted, might
very probably have been successful in saving their lives, had it not
been for an unexpected occurrence which suddenly intervened, and which
led to a fatal result. While they were seated by the altar, in
attitudes of submission and suppliance, they were suddenly aroused by
the rushing toward them of one of their sons, who came in, wounded and
bleeding from some scene of combat, and pursued by angry and ferocious
foes. The spent and fainting warrior sank down at the feet of his
father and mother, and lay there dying and weltering in the blood
which flowed from his wounds. The aged king was aroused to madness at
this spectacle. He leaped to his feet, seized a javelin, and
thundering out at the same time the most loud and bitter imprecations
against the murderers of his son, he hurled the weapon toward them as
they advanced. The javelin struck the shield of the leader of the
assailants, and rebounded from it without producing any other effect
than to enrage still more the furious spirit which it was meant to
destroy. The assailant rushed forward, seized the aged father by the
hair, dragged him slipping, as he went, in the blood of his son, up to
the altar, and there plunged a sword into his body, burying it to the
hilt,--and then threw him down, convulsed and dying, upon the body of
his dying child.
Thus Priam fell, and with him the last hope of the people of Troy. The
city in full possession of their enemies, the palace and citadel
sacked and destroyed, and the king slain, they saw that there was
nothing now left for which they had any wish to contend.