Odysseus Unbound

After 10 years of siege, the Greeks accept that the walls aren't coming down by force.

Odysseus, the designated schemer of the coalition, proposes a different kind of weapon.

The Greeks appear to give up, they burn their camp, board their ships, and sail away, leaving behind an enormous wooden horse.

They also leave a man named Sinon, who lets himself be captured and spins a story.

The horse is an offering to Athena, deliberately built too large to fit through Troy's gates, because if the Trojans ever brought it inside, the city would become untouchable.

A priest named Laukon smells the trap and hurls a spear into the horse's flank, and moments later two serpents rise out of the sea and crush him along with his sons.

The Trojans read that as a divine verdict, believing that this mysterious giant horse is truly what Sinon says it is, not realizing that this was a plan of Odysseus.

the favorite of Athena.