assisted Odysseus in concerting
means for the capture of the town.

To accomplish this object, one final stratagem was resorted to. By the
hands of Epeius of Panopeus, and at the suggestion of Athene, a
capacious hollow wooden horse was constructed, capable of containing one
hundred men. In the inside of this horse the elite of the Grecian
heroes, Neoptolemus, Odysseus, Menelaus, and others, concealed
themselves while the entire Grecian army sailed away 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. Many of the Trojans were anxious to dedicate it to the gods
in the city as a token of gratitude for their deliverance; but the more
cautious spirits inculcated distrust of an enemy's legacy. 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. 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 Simon--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.

The destruction of Troy, according to the decree of the gods, was now
irrevocably sealed. While the Trojans indulged in a night of riotous
festivity, Simon kindled the fire-signal to the Greeks at Tenedos,
loosening the bolts of the wooden horse, from out of which the enclosed
heroes descended. The city, assailed both from within and from without,
was thoroughly sacked and destroyed, with the slaughter or captivity of
the larger portion of its heroes as well as its people. The venerable
Priam perished by the hand of Neoptolemus, having in vain sought shelter
at the domestic altar of Zeus Herceiu