The Trojan Horse: Real or Legendary?

According to ancient mythology, the 'Horse of Troy' helped the Greeks capture the city of Troy after a period of siege.

However, historians still disagree as to whether this famous giant wooden beast was real.

The Trojan horse in epics and plays

The ruins of Troy in Turkey.

Ancient Greek history records that, thanks to the Trojan horse, the Greek army, tired of long battles, entered the city and finally won. Legend has it that the giant horse was built by order of Odysseus, who, along with a number of skilled soldiers, hid in it to deceive the enemy. Thanks to this feat, the wooden horse is forever immortalized in classical works. But does it really exist?

In recent years, historians have questioned: Was the exaggerated display of the wooden horse by the Greeks a myth to make them look like a godly army? Some classicists believe that the Greek army used a weapon used to surround the enemy - like a wooden block - and that the description of the Trojan horse is only metaphorical. .

However, whether or not the Trojan horse really exists, its place in history cannot be denied.

There is a text that mentions the Trojan horse in antiquity, it is Aeneid of Virgil, a Roman poet of the Augustus dynasty who wrote this epic in 29 BC. In Virgil's story, a Greek soldier named Sinon pretends to be lost in order to be captured by the Trojans.

He claimed to have been abandoned while the Greeks hurriedly withdrew to the country. Before withdrawing, they left a horse as an offering to Athena. He also added that, if he could bring the wooden horse, the mascot of the goddess Athena, inside, the city of Troy would be stable forever. King Priam believed, ordered his army and people to destroy a section of the wall to bring giant wooden horses into the city.

A Trojan monk, named Laocoön, quickly realized something was wrong. According to Aeneid, he was trying to warn the castle guards of impending danger. But it was too late - 'the horse entered Troy'.

Before the Aeneid, a play called The Trojan Women by Euripides also mentioned 'the Trojan horse'.

The work, first written in 415 BC, features Poseidon - the Greek god of the sea - opening to the audience: 'From the house beneath Mount Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the workmanship of Pallas , built a wooden horse enough to conceal in its belly an elite army.

Men and horses are sent to the battlefield full of death. In the days to come, the men will tell of the 'wooden horse' with warriors lurking in it'.

The painting depicts a giant wooden horse with a Greek army inside being dragged into the city. 

Fact or legend?

'To what extent is the claim of a computer program free of Trojan horses to be believed? Perhaps the most important thing is to trust the people who wrote the software', Ken Thompson.

In both the play and the poem, the horse symbolizes victory. But the play The Trojan Women depicts it metaphorically, and Aeneid makes historians see it as more literal and real. And this is an idea that both ancient and modern historians want to refute.

The Greek historian Pausanias who lived in the second century AD, during the Roman reign of Marcus Aurelius, in his book Description of Greece, described a horse made of bronze, not of wood, contained brave Greek soldiers inside it.

More recently, in 2014, Dr Armand D'Angour of the University of Oxford, UK, explained the event more simply. 'Archaeological evidence shows that Troy once existed but was burned down, and the giant wooden horse is an exaggerated tale of imaginative people, perhaps inspired by the means of breaking the city. in ancient times, covered with damp horseskin to prevent them from burning.

Some other historians have suggested that the 'Troyan horse' could actually have been anything from a ship with soldiers inside, to a simple slab of wood covered with similar materials. like horse skin.

However, as recently as August 2021, archaeologists in Turkey found dozens of wooden planks dating back thousands of years in the hills of Hisarlik - which is believed to be the historical site of the city of Troy. Although many historians are skeptical, these archaeologists believe they have found the remains of the Trojan horse.

Whether real or not, the term 'Troyan Horse' is still used today, alluding to the subversion from within.

More recently, 'The Trojan Horse' - often referred to simply as a Trojan, refers to malicious software that deceives computer users about its true purpose. When a Trojan takes control of your computer, it makes it vulnerable to other 'invaders'.

Perhaps future historians will look at computer scientist Ken Thompson - who first coined the phrase in the 1980s - the same way we see Virgil and Pausanias today.