Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse, in Greek mythology, the huge, hollow, wooden horse used by the attacking Greeks to gain entrance to the city of Troy, thus defeating the Trojans and ending the Trojan War. Unable to capture the city after a siege of ten years, the Greeks resorted to a stratagem. Having built the horse and filled it with armed warriors, they sailed away a short distance, leaving the horse on the shore. Sinon, a Greek, pretended to the Trojans that he was a follower of Palamedes, who had been treacherously killed by Odysseus, and that he had been chosen as human sacrifice, in response to an oracle speaking for Apollo, in order to win the Greeks a favourable return journey. Sinon persuaded the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athena and that taking it into the city would make Troy invulnerable. That night Sinon released the Greek warriors from the horse. They killed the guards and opened the gates to the returning Greeks, who captured and burned the city.