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The Trojan War - Final Act

From N.S. Gill,
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The Trojan Horse or Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

Odysseus soon devised a way to end the war -- the erection of a giant wooded horse filled with Achaean (Greek) men to be left at the gates of Troy. The Trojans had noticed Achaean ships sailing away earlier that day and thought the giant horse was a peace or sacrificial offering from the Achaeans. Rejoicing, they opened the gates and led the horse into their city. Then, after ten years of privations for the sake of the war, the Trojans brought out their equivalent of champagne. They feasted, drank hard, and fell asleep. During the night, the Achaeans stationed inside the horse opened the trap door, crept down, opened the gates, and let in their countrymen who had only pretended to slip away. The Achaeans then torched the city, killing the men and taking the women prisoner. Helen was reunited with her husband Menelaus.

So ended the Trojan War and so began the Achaean leaders' torturous and often deadly trips home, some of which are told in the sequel to The Iliad, The Odyssey, also attributed to Homer.

Agamemnon got his comeuppance at the hand of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover, Agamemnon's cousin Aegisthus.



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  2. Myths vs. Legends
  3. Gods in the Heroic Age - Bible vs. Biblos
  4. Creation Stories
  5. Olympian Gods and Goddesses
  6. Five Ages of Man
  7. Philemon and Baucis
  8. Prometheus
  9. Trojan War
  10. Bulfinch Mythology
  11. Myths and Legends
  12. Golden Fleece and the Tanglewood Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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