The armor of Achilles was offered as a reward for the warrior who had fought most bravely in rescuing the body, and who had done most harm to the Trojans. To decide the question which of the Greek chiefs deserved this honor, it was resolved to take the votes of the Trojan prisoners then in the Greek camp, who had witnessed the struggle at the Scæan Gate. The majority of votes were in favor of Ulysses, and to him, therefore, the splendid shield and corselet and helmet and greaves, made by Vulcan for the son of Thetis, were given. Ajax was so disappointed and grieved at not having obtained the coveted prize that he became insane, and in his frenzy he slew himself with his own sword.
The Greeks had now lost their two most powerful warriors, and they began to think that it was impossible for them to take Troy by force, and that they must try other methods. So the wise Ulysses then set his brain to work to devise some stratagem by which the city might be taken. The first thing he did was to capture the Trojan prince and soothsayer, Helenus, who had gone out from the city to offer sacrifices in the temple of Apollo on Mount Ida. Calchas, the Greek soothsayer, had said that Helenus was the only mortal who knew by what means Troy could be conquered, and so Ulysses made him prisoner and threatened him with death if he did not tell.
Then Helenus told the Ithacan chief that before Troy could be taken three things must be done. First, he said, the Greeks must get the arrows of Hercules; next, they must carry away the sacred Palladium, for as long as it remained within the walls the city was safe; and, lastly, they must have the help of the son of Achilles.
Now the arrows of Hercules could be obtained only from Phil-oc-teʹtes, a Greek chief who received them from Hercules himself. These arrows had been dipped in the blood of the hydra, a monster Hercules had slain. This made them poisonous, so that wounds inflicted by them were fatal. Philoctetes was with his countrymen at Aulis when they set sail for Troy, but he was bitten on the foot by a serpent, and the smell of the injured part being so offensive that his comrades could not endure it, he had been left behind, on the advice of Ulysses.
Ulysses now resolved to get Philoctetes to come to Troy, if he were still alive, and so, taking Diomede with him, he set out for Lemnos. They found him at the cave where they had left him ten years before. The wound was not yet healed, and he had suffered much, having had no means of existence except game which he had to procure himself.
Still enraged at their former ill-treatment of him, Philoctetes at first refused the request of the two chiefs. Their mission would have failed had not Hercules appeared to him in a dream and advised him to go to Troy, telling him that his wound would be healed by the famous Machaon. He then gladly went with Ulysses and Diomede. On his arrival at the Grecian camp the great physician cured him by casting him into a deep sleep and cutting away the diseased flesh from the injured foot. He awoke in perfect health and strength, and at once joined his countrymen in the war, resolved to make good use of his fatal arrows.
An opportunity soon offered, for the Trojans now began again to venture out in the open plain, thinking that the Greeks were not so dangerous since the terrible Achilles was no longer at their head. Their new general in chief was Paris, and Philoctetes, happening to encounter him in battle, aimed at him with one of his poisoned arrows and pierced him through the shoulder. Paris was immediately carried back to the city, suffering intense pain, for the poison quickly began to take effect. Then at last the thoughts of Paris turned to the fair Œnone, whom, twenty years before, he had left in sorrow and loneliness on Mount Ida. He remembered her words, that he would one day have recourse to her for help. Hoping, therefore, that she might take pity on him, and perhaps cure him of his wound, for she had been instructed in medicine by Apollo, he ordered his attendants to carry him to where she still dwelt on the slopes of Ida. Œnone had not forgotten his cruel desertion of her, and so she refused to use her skill in his behalf. But when she heard that he was dead, she came down to Troy, and in her grief threw herself on his funeral pyre, and perished by his side.
Meanwhile the Ithacan king, not forgetting the other conditions mentioned by Helenus, set sail for the island of Scyros, where the son of Achilles resided. His name was Pyrʹrhus, or Ne-op-tolʹ-mus, and, as he was a brave youth, he rejoiced at having an opportunity of fighting the Trojans, by whom his father had been killed. Ulysses gave him his father's armor, and by many heroic deeds in the war he proved that he was worthy to wear it.
The Palladium was now to be carried off from Troy, and this was a task by no means easy to perform. But the man of many arts succeeded in accomplishing it. Putting on the garments of a beggar, and scourging his body so as to leave marks, he went to the Scæan Gate, and entreated the guards to admit him. He told them that he was a Greek slave, and that he wished to escape from his master who had cruelly ill-used him. The guards, believing his story, permitted him to enter the city.
But Helen, happening to pass by at a place near the king's palace, where the pretended beggar sat down to rest, immediately recognized him. He made a sign to her to keep silent, thinking that Paris being now dead, Helen perhaps was friendly to the Greeks, and wished them to take Troy, so that she might return to her own country. In this Ulysses was right, as very soon appeared, and as Helen declared years afterwards, when telling to his own son, Telemachus, the story of the Ithacan king's adventure within the walls of Troy.
Helen passed on without uttering a word, but in the evening she sent one of her maids to bring Ulysses secretly to her apartment in the palace. There she expressed her joy at meeting her countryman, and after hospitably entertaining him, she listened with pleasure to his plans. She then told him of the plans of the Trojans, and where and how the Palladium was to be got. Having thus obtained the information he desired, Ulysses contrived to make his way back unobserved to the Greek camp. In a few days he returned, accompanied by Diomede. They got into the city by scaling the walls, and Diomede, climbing on the shoulders of Ulysses, entered the citadel. Here, by following the directions given by Helen, he found the famous statue, and he and his companion carried it off to their friends at the ships, who rejoiced at the success of the undertaking.
Troy was now no longer under the protection of Pallas Minerva. Though that goddess helped the Greeks in their battles, she was obliged to save the city itself while it contained her sacred statue. But the Palladium being no longer within the walls, she was now at liberty to help the Greeks to capture and destroy the city. She therefore put into the mind of Ulysses the idea of the wooden horse, and she instructed the Greek chief E-peʹus how to make it. This horse was of vast size, large enough to contain about a hundred men, for it was hollow within.
When it was finished, provisions were put into it. Then Ulysses, and Pyrrhus, and Menelaus, and Epeus, and a number of other Greek warriors, mounted into it by means of a ladder, after which the opening was fastened by strong bolts.
Meanwhile the other Greeks broke up their camp, and all going aboard their ships, they set sail, as if they had given up the siege, and were about to return to Greece. But they went no farther than the island of Tenʹe-dos, about three miles from the shore.
As soon as the Trojans saw from their walls that the tents of the enemy were removed, and that their fleet had departed, they were filled with surprise and delight. They believed that the Greeks had given up the war, and so, throwing open their gates, they rushed out in multitudes upon the plain, King Priam riding in his chariot at their head.
But soon their attention was attracted by the huge wooden horse, and they gathered about it, astonished at its great size, and wondering what it meant. Some thought that it meant evil to Troy, and advised that it should be burned; others proposed that it should be hauled into the city and placed within the citadel. La-ocʹo-on, one of Priam's sons, who was also a priest of Apollo, cried out in a loud voice, warning the king and people against doing this. "Are you so foolish," he exclaimed, "as to suppose that the enemy are gone? Put no faith in this horse. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when offering gifts."
Thus saying, Laocoon hurled his spear against the side of the horse, and it sent forth a hollow sound like a deep groan. But at this moment a stranger, having the appearance of a Greek, was brought before the king. Some Trojan shepherds, finding him loitering on the river bank, had made him prisoner. Being asked who he was and why he was there, he told an artful story. His name, he said, was Si'non, and he was a Greek. His countrymen, having decided to give up the war, resolved to offer one of themselves as a sacrifice to the gods, that they might get fair winds to return home, and they selected him to be the victim. To escape that terrible fate he concealed himself among the reeds by the side of the Scamander until the fleet departed. This was Sinon's account of himself. The Trojans believed it, and the prisoner was set free. But the king asked him to tell them about the wooden horse,—why it had been made, and left there upon the plain.
Then Sinon told another false story. He said that the horse was a peace offering to Minerva, who had been angry because the Palladium was taken from Troy. For that insult to her, the goddess commanded the Greeks to return to their own country, and Calchas ordered them to build the horse as an atonement for their crime. He also told them to make it so large that the Trojans might not be able to drag it within their gates; for if it were brought into the city, it would be a protection to Troy, but if any harm were done to it, ruin would come on the kingdom of Priam.
King Priam and the Trojans believed this story too, and a terrible thing which just then happened made them believe it all the more. After Laocoon had hurled his spear at the wooden horse, he and his two sons went to offer sacrifice to the gods at an altar erected on the beach. While they were thus engaged, two enormous serpents, darting out from the sea, glided up to the altar, seized the priest and his sons, and crushed all three to death in their tremendous coils.
The terrified Trojans regarded this awful event as a punishment sent by the gods upon Laocoon for insulting Minerva by casting his spear at her gift, which they now believed the horse to be. They therefore resolved to take the huge figure into the city in spite of the advice of Cassandra, who also warned them that it would bring ruin upon Troy. And so they made a great breach in the walls, for none of their gates were large enough to admit the vast image, and fastening strong ropes to its feet they dragged it into the citadel. Then they decorated the temples with garlands of green boughs, and spent the remainder of the day in festivity and rejoicing.
But in the dead of the night, when they were all sunk in deep repose, the treacherous Sinon drew the bolts from the trapdoor in the side of the wooden horse, and out came the Greek warriors, rejoicing at the success of their stratagem.
Sinon next hurried down to the beach, and there kindled a fire as a signal to his countrymen on the ships. They knew what it meant, for it was part of the plan that had been agreed on. Quickly plying their oars, they soon reached the shore, and, marching across the plain, the Greeks poured in thousands into the streets, through the breach that had been made in the walls.
The Trojans, startled from their sleep by the noise, understood at once what had happened. Hastily they rushed to arms, and, led and encouraged by Æneas and other chiefs, they fought valiantly to drive out the enemy, but all their valor was in vain. Troy was at last taken. The victorious Greeks swept through the city, dealing death and destruction around them. King Priam was slain by Pyrrhus, at the foot of the altar in one of the temples, to which he fled for safety. His son Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris, was slain by Menelaus. The Spartan king, believing that what his wife had done had been decreed by the Fates and the will of the gods, pardoned her and took her with him to his ships. The women of the Trojan royal family were carried off as slaves.
Æneas, with his father Anchises and his son I-uʹlus, escaped from the city, and sailed from Troas with a fleet and a number of warlike followers. After many adventures by sea and land, which the Roman poet, Verʹgil, tells about in his poem called the Æ-neʹid, he reached Italy. There he established a settlement, and his descendants, it is said, were the founders of Rome.
Having completed their work of destruction and carried off to their ships all the riches of Troy, the Greeks set fire to the city, and in a few hours nothing remained but a mass of smouldering ruins. So ended the famous Trojan War. The prophecy of the soothsayer, Æsacus, at the birth of Paris, was fulfilled. Paris had brought destruction upon his family and country.
Great was the rejoicing of the Greeks at having at last brought the long and terrible war to a successful end. They had lost heavily in men and treasure, but they had defeated and destroyed the enemy, and taken possession of all the wealth of the rich city of Troy. They now looked forward with pleasure to the prospect of a safe return to their homes and families, which they had not seen for ten years. But for some of them, as we shall see, this happy hope was never realized.
The most unfortunate of them all was Agamemnon. He reached his kingdom and city of Mycenæ in safety, but he was there cruelly murdered by Æ-gisʹthus, a relative of his, whom his wife, Clytemnestra, had married during his absence.
The Trojan princess, Cassandra, who accompanied Agamemnon to Mycenæ, had warned him of his doom, but as usual her words were disregarded, and she herself was slain at the same time as the ill-fated king. Agamemnon had a son named O-resʹtes, who was then but a boy, and Ægisthus intended to kill him also, but the youth's sister, E-lecʹtra, contrived to have him sent secretly to the court of his uncle, Stroʹphi-us, king of Phoʹcis. Here he was affectionately received and tenderly cared for. His constant companion was his cousin, Pylʹa-des, the son of Strophius, and so strong was their friendship for each other that it became famous in song and story.
When Orestes reached the years of manhood, he resolved to punish the murderers of his father. With this object he went to Mycenæ, taking with him his friend and companion, Pylades; and having obtained admission to the royal palace, he slew Ægisthus.
As Clytemnestra had taken part in the murder of Agamemnon, Orestes slew her also. This killing of his own mother provoked the anger of the gods, and Orestes was commanded to go to the oracle of Apollo, at Delphi, to learn there what punishment he should suffer for his crime. He obeyed, and the oracle told him that he must bring to Greece a statue of Diana which was then in the temple of that goddess in Taurica.
This was a dangerous enterprise, for the king of Taurica had a practice of sacrificing in that very temple any foreigners found in his country. Nevertheless Orestes undertook the task. He went to Taurica, accompanied, as usual, by his ever faithful friend Pylades. No sooner had they arrived than they were seized and carried before the king, and condemned to be sacrificed. But Orestes discovered, to his surprise and delight, that the priestess of the temple was his own sister, Iphigenia, who, as will be remembered, had been carried away many years before by Diana herself, when about to be sacrificed by the Greeks at Aulis. By the help of Iphigenia, the two friends not only escaped from Taurica, but carried off the statue, and Iphigenia returned with them to Greece. Orestes succeeded to the throne of his father, and as king of Mycenæ he lived and reigned many years in prosperity and happiness.
Menelaus returned to his kingdom of Sparta with his wife, Helen, but he had many wanderings and adventures. He was detained by unfavorable winds for some time on an island near the coast of Egypt, and he might never have reached home but for the advice he received from Proʹteus, one of the sea gods. It was no easy matter to get advice from Proteus. It was very difficult to find him, and still more difficult to get him to answer questions, for he had a habit of changing himself rapidly into many different forms, and so escaping from those who came to consult him. But Menelaus had the good fortune of meeting a water nymph named I-doʹthe-a, a daughter of Proteus, and she directed him what to do. There was a certain cave near the seaside, to which the Old Man of the Sea, as Proteus was sometimes called, came every day at noon to sleep. Idothea told Menelaus he would find the old man there, and that he must seize him quickly in his arms, and hold him fast in spite of all his changes, until he took the shape in which he had first appeared. Then he would answer any question put to him.
Menelaus followed these directions, taking with him three of his bravest warriors, as Idothea also advised. They found Proteus, and rushing upon him, they seized and held him firmly in their grip, though he tried hard to escape.
The Old Man of the Sea then told Menelaus that he must go to Egypt, to the river there, and offer sacrifices to the gods, and that they would send him forth upon his voyage home, which would be speedy and safe. The Greek chief did as Proteus directed, and the prophecy was fulfilled. He soon reached his Spartan home, where, with his famous queen, Helen, he spent the remainder of his life in happiness.
Idomeneus, the warrior king of Crete, reached his island kingdom in safety.
But a sad event occurred on his arrival in the island. During his voyage home there was a terrible storm, and Idomeneus much feared that his fleet might be destroyed. He then made a vow that if his ships escaped, he would sacrifice to Neptune the first living creature he met on landing. Unfortunately this happened to be his own son, who came down to the shore to receive and welcome his father. Idomeneus, though overwhelmed with grief, nevertheless fulfilled his promise to the god, but the Creʹtans were so incensed at the inhuman act that they banished him from the island.
Thus driven from his own country Idomeneus sailed westward until he came to the southern coast of Italy, where he founded the city and colony of Sal-lenʹtia, and lived to an extreme old age.
The fate of Ajax Oileus, king of Locris, was almost as terrible as that of Agamemnon. On the night of the destruction of Troy he had cruelly ill-treated the princess Cassandra, whom he dragged from the altar of the temple of Minerva, to which she had fled for refuge. Even the Greeks themselves were shocked at the crime, and they threatened to punish him for it. He was, however, allowed to set sail for Greece. But Minerva borrowed from Jupiter his flaming thunderbolts, and, obtaining permission from Neptune, she raised a furious tempest, which destroyed the Locrian king's ship. He himself swam to a rock, and as he sat there he defiantly cried out that he was safe in spite of all the gods. This insult to the immortals brought upon him the wrath of Neptune, who, smiting the rock with his awful trident, hurled the impious Ajax into the depths of the sea.
The venerable Nestor reached his home without misfortune or accident He ended his days in peace in his kingdom of Pylos, though he had to mourn the loss of his brave son Antilochus, whom Memnon had slain.
Diomede also reached his kingdom of Ætolia, but he found that in his absence his home had been seized by a stranger. This was a punishment sent upon him by Venus, whom, as we have seen, he had wounded in the hand at the siege of Troy.
Quitting his kingdom and country, the warrior wandered to other lands. He finally settled in the south of Italy, where he built a city, which he called Ar-gyrʹi-pa, and married the daughter of Dauʹnus, the king of the country.
Neoptolemus, or Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, returned to Phthia, where his grandfather, Peleus, still lived and reigned. He took with him Andromache and Helenus, the only one of Priam's sons who lived after the destruction of Troy. Pyrrhus, died a few years after his return, and Andromache became the wife of Helenus. The Trojan prince soon gained the friendship of Peleus, who gave him a kingdom in E-piʹrus to rule over, and here he and Andromache spent the remainder of their lives together.
But no one of all the warrior chiefs of Greece who fought at Troy met with so many dangers in returning to his native land as the famous Ulysses. Ten year elapsed after the end of the great war before he reached his Ithacan home. There he was welcomed by his devoted wife, Penelope, and his affectionate son, Telemachus, who had passed all those years in loving remembrance of him and anxious hope of his coming. His wonderful adventures during his many wanderings are described in Homer's Odyssey. An account of them would fill another book like this Story of Troy.