Was the Trojan Horse real? The Trojan Horse was either made up by Virgil in the Aeneid, was actually some kind of siege engine, or was a boat usually used for giving tribute.
We all know the story of the Trojan Horse. During the Trojan War, in approximately the 13th century BC, Greek warriors were trying to enter the city of Troy. They spent ten years trying, but they couldn’t break through the city’s defenses, so they came up with another idea. Overnight, they hid all of their ships to make it look like they had fled and just left a giant wooden horse. The Trojans thought the horse was a gift, and they brought it inside the city walls. Inside the wooden horse were the best Greek warriors. Once the horse was inside Troy, the warriors waited for night, snuck out, and opened the gates to let in the rest of the Greek army. The Greeks subsequently burned Troy to the ground.
All of the evidence for the Trojan War and the Trojan Horse came from Classical Greek epic poems and there was no way of knowing if they were true, completely made up, or just embellished. In the stories, Paris, a prince of Troy, visited Greece and stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. We get the famous saying, “a face that launched a thousand ships” from this story because Menelaus sent a thousand ships to get her back, although we get this phrase from a 17th century poem by Christopher Marlowe. All of the information about the war comes from the Aeneid, a poem by Virgil.
So, is any of this true? Well, there was a city called Troy. Its ruins are in modern day Turkey. The ruins were only identified as Troy in 1865. Before that, it was assumed to be an ancient Greek city. Excavation of the city has continued ever since then and nine different cities have been identified. Each new city was built on the ruins of the previous one. The first settlement came in 3600 BC and this was when people first started living in the area. The Troys we need to look at are Troy VI and Troy VIIa. Troy VI was founded in 1750 BC and it was completely destroyed in 1300 BC. The Greek poets put the Trojan War at roughly the 13th century BC, so near to here. However, Troy VI was probably destroyed by an earthquake. Troy VIIa was founded in 1300 on the ruins of Troy VI and was destroyed in 1180 BC. This city has very strong fortifications and a big city wall. There are also burn marks on the ruins of this town, which could indicate that it was destroyed by an invading force. This is obviously not conclusive proof, but it is roughly at the time when the Trojan War was said to have happened.
What about the Trojan Horse? The most likely explanation is that it was made up for literary purposes. It would be a good way to bring the siege to an end and it would play to the greed and the stupidity of the Trojans, while playing up the ingenuity and bravery of the Greek warriors. Any city that had been besieged for ten years (which in itself is highly impractical on both sides) would have to be pretty dumb to fall for a trick like a Trojan Horse. There are two other explanations that could make sense.
The Greek army would have used many different types of siege engine to try to scale or destroy the wars of the city. It was common at the time to cover these siege engines in damp horse skins so that they wouldn’t catch fire if flaming arrows were fired at them. The story of the Trojan War was an oral history long before it was written down. It is possible that one of the people who first heard it mistook horse hide covered siege engine for a wooden horse. Still, even hiding warriors inside a siege engine doesn’t really make much sense.
The last possible explanation is that the Trojan Horse was actually a ship with a horsehead decoration on its prow. In Greek, the same verb is used for people getting into a wooden horse and people getting into a boat. Also, ships were quite often called sea-horses. So, “hiding men in a wooden horse” could very easily mean hiding men in a ship. The last point is that these boats were used to pay tribute to the victors at the end of the war. They could be filled with precious metals and gifted to the winning side. If the Greeks left a wooden boat with a horsehead on its prow on the beach, the Trojans could possibly have thought it was tribute and taken it inside. This makes a little more sense than a giant wooden horse that the Greeks were somehow able to construct without being noticed. Still, even if the boat theory is correct, the Trojans would probably have checked inside the ship. I guess we will never know. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.discovery.com/exploration/City-Of-Troy-Was-Real
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/did-trojan-horse-exist-classicist-tests-greek-myths
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/did-trojan-horse-exist-classicist-tests-greek-myths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Horse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy
https://www.thoughtco.com/face-that-launched-a-thousand-ships-121367
Photo by Ayşe İpek: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-photography-of-a-wooden-trojan-horse-13384971/