Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/335

TROJAN HORSE. -LAOCOON 308 to Tenedos, burning their tents and pretending to have abandoned the siege. The Trojans, overjoyed to find themselves free, issued from the city and contemplated with astonishment the fabric which their enemies had left behind : they long doubted what should be done with it ; and the anxious heroes from within heard the surrounding consultations, as well as the voice of Helen when she pronounced their names and counterfeited the accents of their wives. 1 Many of the Trojans were anxious to dedicate it to the gods in the city as a token of gratitude for their deliver- ance ; but the more cautious spirits inculcated distrust of an enemy's legacy; and Laocoon, the priest of Poseidon, manifested his aversion by striking the side of the horse with his spear. The sound revealed that the horse was hollow, but the Trojans heeded not this warning of possible fraud ; and the unfortunate Laocoon, a victim to his own sagacity and patriotism, miserably perished before the eyes of his countrymen, together with one of his sons, two serpents being sent expressly by the gods out of the sea to destroy him. By this terrific spectacle, together with the perfidious counsels of Sinon, a traitor whom the Greeks had left behind for the special purpose of giving false information, the Trojans were induced to make a breach in their own walls, and to drag the fatal fabric with triumph and exultation into their city.2 1 Odyss. iv. 275 ; Virgil, JEneid, ii. 14; Heyne, Excurs. 3. ad JEneid. ii- Stcsichorus, in his 'I'Xiov Hepaig, gave the number of heroes in the wooden horse as one hundred ( Stesichor. Fragm. 26, ed. Kleine ; compare Athenae- xiii.p. 610). 2 Odyss. viii. 492 ; xi. 522. Argument of the 'I/Uou Iltpaif of Arktinus, p. 21. Diintz. Hydin. f. 108-135. Bacchylides and Euphorion ap. Servium ad Virgil. JEneid. ii. 201. Both Sinon and Laocoon came originally from the old epic poem of Arkti- nus, though Virgil may perhaps have immediately borrowed both them, and other matters in his second book, from a poem passing under the name of Pisander (see Macrob. Satur. v. 2; Heyne, Excurs. 1. adJEn. ii. ; Welcker, Der Episch. Kyklus, v. 97). We cannot give credit either to Arktinus or Pisander for the masterly specimen of oratory which is put into the mouth of Sinon in the JEneid. In Quintus Smyrnaeus (xii. 366), the Trojans torture and mutilate Sinon to extort from him the truth : his endurance, sustained by the inspiration of Here, is proof against the extremity of suffering, and he adheres to his falsa tale. This is probably an incident of the old epic, though the delicate taste