HOW TROY WAS TAKEN. 17

paign. It will suffice to say that Paris was himself
slain by an arrow, that Neoptolemus, the son of
Achilles, took his place in the field, and that the
Trojans suffered so severely at his hands that they
took shelter behind their walls, whence they never
again emerged to meet the Greeks in the field.

But Troy was safe from capture while the Pal-
ladium, a statue which Jupiter himself had given to
Dardanus, the ancestor of the Trojans, remained in
the citadel of that city. Ulysses overcame this diffi-
culty. He entered Troy in the disguise of a wounded
and ragged fugitive, and managed to steal the Pal-
ladium from the citadel. Then, as the walls of Troy
still defied their assailants, a further and extraordi-
nary stratagem was employed to gain access to the
city. It seems a ridiculous one to us, but was ac-
cepted as satisfactory by the writers of Greece.
This stratagem was the following:

A great hollow wooden horse, large enough to
contain one hundred armed men, was constructed,
and in its interior the leading Grecian heroes con-
cealed themselves. Then the army set fire to its
tents, took to its ships, and sailed away to the island
of Tenedos, as if it had abandoned the siege. Only
the great horse was left on the long-contested battle-
field.

The Trojans, filled with joy at the sight of their
departing foes, came streaming out into the plain,
women as well as warriors, and gazed with astonish-
ment at the strange monster which their enemies
had left. Many of them wanted to take it into the
city, and dedicate it to the gods as a mark of' grati-

1.—d 2*