Talk:Trojan Horse/Archive 1

confused
Hello, I thought "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" meant "fear the gods and their references". Greetings.
 * "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" means: "I fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts." --Akhilleus (talk) 23:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

My father (b. 1897), who studied Latin and Greek, translated "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes":

I fear Greeks (from the start) and bearing gifts? Oi.

Also, on the main page:

Trjan horse virus
I just had my pc at home get infected with a trojan horse virus. Any chance at getting some info on it? Thanks......

Ya, be careful what you download. Or look up, trojan horse (computing). Call of duty 21:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a question: which were Virgil's sources. Only those few lines in the Odissey?

Uhh....... I dont understand your question im not really a know-it-all person. Call of duty 04:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey Say Jump
OK, now if you're going to be vulgar, at least explain why you put unnecessary messages at the top of this article, whoever did this! Anonymous 16:35, 5 December 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.191.64.130 (talk) 00:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Has this entry been vandalised? The first section seems to be curses

"Hollow Victory"
The article says, "The famous horse is considered as one of the biggest hollow victorys of all time." This pun strikes me as flippant and silly. I removed this sentence, but 64.113.88.220 added it back in without comment. I don't want to get into a revert war on this, so... what do other people think? Perhaps someone else can remove it, if you agree with me? -- Narsil 19:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it's a terrible joke, and should be added to BJAODN :D Druss666uk 22:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, and assume good faith too, at least it wasn't vandalism. Druss666uk 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Lame (and misspelled) pun and inaccurate too--the horse wasn't the victory, it was seen by the Trojans as a peace offering. How can an object be a victory, hollow or otherwise?  An event could be a victory but not a static object. 68.161.59.5 (talk) 03:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Trojan Horse
Shouldn't the computer virus part be made into it's own article? 24.138.61.83 (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)Evan - God of life

Iliad?
Shouldn't the Illiad be mentioned in this article? Are there other sources of the legend, or is it only from the Iliad? Michael Hardy 00:03, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * It's not mentioned in the Iliad, which ends after the death of Hector. It's mentioned in the Odyssey and perhaps with more detail in Virgil's Aeneid.  ( 16:26, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

would the Aeneid be considerd a secondary source or a seperate mentioning though due to the fact that it really isn't Greek myth and was written centuries later?


 * The Aeneid stays true to the Greek myth and offers much more in detail of the Trojan horse and sack of Troy than any other source. Not including it is like saying don't include the "Empire Strikes Back" from the the Star Wars Trilogy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.194.76.236 (talk) 01:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Poetic Translation vs Prose Translation
A prose translation of both the Odyssey and the Aeneid would be a lot easier to understand and convey the true meaning of what the original poems meant. The poetic misses many important details in order to rhyme. I think a prose version would be a lot better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.194.76.236 (talk) 01:21, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Names in the "Men in the Horse" section
The list claims to contain 40 names, but there are only 38. Bthoenen (talk) 00:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

yes but the 2 spies that might have been in the mouth could count. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.180.48.80 (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

A basic version

Watch Troy, it is a 15 so becarefull your not caught by your parents if under 15 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.17.50.109 (talk) 20:05, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Uncertainty?
There is a pretty much unanimous agreement that the Trojan War was a historical event. I think the fact or fiction should be removed or reworded. Archaelogists are mostly positive that Ilium is troy, they are just uncertain which one it is. Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.247.106.179 (talk) 20:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

two column passage from the Aeneid
I don't understand the reasoning behind placing the quote from Vergil's Aeneid in two columns. Because of the wealth of images available, this kind of color block wouldn't seem necessary to add graphics interest. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:40, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not necessary for visual reasons, but it is an efficient use of space. I didn't see any reason to change it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:43, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If you were looking for a way to add the Trojan War sidebar, why didn't you say so? The layout you used was not good, as it created large block of whitespace under IE8, so I've shifted the sidebar down.  Sidebars are not article content, they are a navigational aid, and should not take precedence over article content.  I think where it is now works well, and I've adjusted the size of the gallery images to allow it to move as far up the article as possible. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, that was only one consideration, as the Trojan War template is still new and subject to revision (it's the result of protracted negotiations at Talk:Trojan War). The layout of two blocks of text side-by-side is usually used to compare two separate passages, or to present a translation next to its original. Because the break in the text coincides with Vergil making a transition, I also had to read it twice to make sure it was supposed to be sequential. So I found it graphically misleading for those reasons, as well as a needless barrier to graphic flexibility for a relatively short article that has a lot of illustrations. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:49, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Trojan Horse
Hi my name is Jake Richard from Louisiana. My class and I would like to thank you for this. We are learning about Troy and everyone wanted to see the Famous Horse. So I pulled up this site because I know alot about The War of Troy. So thanks a lot. --Jake Richard

the etymology of trojan horse (doureios hippos) does not come from "Gift Horse" it is translated into new greek as wooden horse ,metaphorically speaking one could say about "gift horse" but doureios ippos does not come from "dwron" (gift) but from (drus)=wood ---Nikos Sideras —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.166.213.111 (talk) 15:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Mykonos vase
All refs dated the vase as 670 BCE (or later) and not 8. century. Homer is dated to the middle 8. century BCE not later. So this explanation make also no sense in both ways. If the ref of this book is true (not yet verifiable), then it disputed all current scientific facts.
 * Wood, Michael (1985). In Search of the Trojan War. London: BBC books. pp. 80; 251. ISBN 9780563201618. "The earliest known representation of the Horse from an eighth-century-BC vase on Mykonos. The story was evidently current some time before Homer." (sorry if my grammer is to bad) -- (talk) 17:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The Wood book isn't that recent and may have been superseded by more recent research. What are the references for these alternative dates, please? With references, we can put them in as alternatives. It's not appropriate to mark cited information from reliable sources as without something to back it up. A single editor's as yet unsupported claim that "this explanation make also no sense in both ways" is not sufficient. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You ignore facts, there are enough refs for this . Ok he is an historian reporter and he has written this. When we take google for find this refs, there is an clear result. No finding for this, except "Michael Wood" and wikipedia (related). I will ask someone third to decide this absolutly dubious ref. --Perhelion (talk) 08:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Please do—we all want the article to be accurate. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment
Grateful thanks for the detailed research that has gone into this response.

I have Woods's book and, as you suggest, the bibliography contains no citations for his 8th-century assertion for the date of the artefact. However, and again as you suggest, Woods has sufficient standing to allow his view to remain and, as he specifically relates the item to both the date of the Homeric tale and the supposed date of the conflict, I believe that it needs to do so. For me, illustrating the date of the legend with respect to the date of the written account is  the real point Woods is making and it's an important one for the article. In this context the actual date of manufacture, while needing to be correct, is secondary.

Obviously this does not preclude assessments from other sources; in particular you have found references to images that disallow the article's declaration "There is only one known surviving classical depiction of the Trojan horse" and this needs to be remedied. For the sake of relevance sources speaking in the context of "Homer" and the war, as Wood is doing, would be preferable. --Old Moonraker (talk) 19:21, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Organization: move table of contents up
The Wikipedia style is to have a short to medium length introduction, then the table of contents, then the remainder of the article with full detail. In light of that, the table of contents is too far down in the article. I suggest putting it right before the paragraph that begins "According to Quintus Smyrnaeus,...". DMJ001 (talk) 04:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Battering Ram?
Recommend you either delete this section or find a source. The first known use of battering rams by Assyrians was somewhere betwee 850 and 885 BC, or about 300 years after the likely period of the Trojan War. Further, Greek knowledge of siege engines was far, far behind that of the Assyrians. As late as the Peloponnesian War (431-403 BC), Greeks still had not mastered the art of attacking walls with siege engines; of the 21 sieges conducted in that war, virtually all merely surrendered after a long blockade. Of those that were actually taken by storm, they were aided by traitors inside the cities who gained them passage through the walls. While the battering ram was known to the Greeks during the Peloponnesian War, the inept siege of Plataea demonstrated the ineffectiveness of Greek rams against even moderate walls. Unless better historical evidence of Greek knowledge of siege engines during the period of the Trojan War can be documented, this 'theory' is unreasonable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.181.14.90 (talk) 21:21, 26 December 2008 (UTC) I hate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.228.235.33 (talk) 08:38, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Corrections and comments
This article needs a little bit of work and some expansion.

The introduction was way too long and it was going into too much detail about the history of the Trojan Horse so I split it and made a section called "Historical accounts". I also fixed the "Images" section since photos at the end overlapped.

The accounts of Homer, Virgil, Quintus Smyrnaeus should be separated and placed in chronological order. It would be worth pointing out what was the first reference to the Trojan Horse in history: Odysseus' account in the Odyssey. The way this article presents the history of the Trojan Horse makes it almost sound as if Virgil or Quintus Smyrnaeus were the first to talk about it.

"Factual explanations" does not appeal me very much as a title for a section. The information about Pausanias, Assyrians and Schliemann also need to be in chronological order.

ICE77 (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, that section was, I suspect, written by someone for whom English was not his best language. It could perhaps use some cleaning up ("Ulysses leads the dance?" What?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.192.182 (talk) 01:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I fixed the points raised by the IP. Dougweller (talk) 05:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Machaon?
Machaon couldn't have been inside the Trojan Horse. He was killed by Eurypylus, son of Telephus in Book 6 of Posthomerica, line 429.

"His [Machaon's] life's breath left as he spoke and headed straight for Hades" - 6.429 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.129.102 (talk) 00:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes that is rigth, there are not many who say that he was in the horse. I know 2 sources; Virgil (Aeneis II. v. 233,263) and Hyginus (Fabulae 108), but these are much later latin. (So we could replace him!?) It could be a mistake by Hyginus, because he covers both versions at the same time Fabulae 113 --Perhelion (talk) 15:21, 21 May 2011 (UTC) Then Eurypylus must died only in the final battle (but Hyginus not mention any more when he died). But also another (maybe?) mistake from him is that he, one of the greatest fighters, not mention (Eurypylus in his list, Fab.115). --Perhelion (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You assume that there is a pristine, historically correct list of men who were inside the horse that is somehow corrupted over time and can be recovered. The Trojan Horse as it appears in literature is a myth, even if there is some historicity to the Trojan War itself or even to the horse. The task is not to attempt to reconcile the various traditions into one "correct" whole, which would be both synthesis and OR, but to understand how these narrative traditions work and describe them. Let me propose a solution:
 * Present the list as it appears in the most comprehensive or influential source, and identify it as such (Vergil, for example).
 * Footnote each man, like Machaon, who has a tradition at variance. In the footnote, cite the other sources that don't place the figure in the horse.
 * If other sources list men not given by the chosen source (such as Vergil), add a subsection list of " ====In other accounts==== ". List men not given by your chosen main source, and give a footnote for each citing the other sources who identify him as an occupant of the horse. Introduce this section by saying "Lists or allusions to individual men in the horse are also given by X, Y, and Z." Cynwolfe (talk) 15:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be a (good) professional solution (the theoi-project has also discussed a cooperation with Wikipedia, but I do not know the result). Wikipedia goes on in the future more and more to verifiable sources.--Perhelion (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Camouflage
From the first section: "Today, special forces use camouflage, airborne transports, and other techniques and equipment to sneak behind enemy lines, taking advantage of the "element of surprise", in order to take and hold a key position until reinforcements arrive."

I'm not sure what to replace it with, but sneaking behind enemy lines using camo and aircraft aren't really related to sneaking in by giving them a "gift" that secretly contains an army waiting to attack. It's an entirely different technique. In one case they don't know anything's got in; in the other they willingly accept something not knowing it's dangerous. 64.178.129.122 (talk) 11:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It is indeed the "gift" element that's significant in this article: why does the sentence need to be replaced at all, when a straightforward deletion will do? Go for it! --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * How long has that sentence been there? Somehow I've never noticed it. That kind of comparison, while fun and thus helpful to make if you're teaching a class of bored students, shouldn't be in an encyclopedia unless military historians or other RS have actually make the point. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fix.--Old Moonraker (talk) 15:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Present day analogies & techniques
The above sentence on camouflage was added by me on 31 May 2011. The Trojan War is not just any War, it's probably one of the most famous Wars over the last three thousand years or so. This war was won after ten "bloody" years due to a strategem, the Trojan Horse that placed about 30 men "behind enemy lines", lines that were supported by an army of over 50,000 strong, and to achieve their scope, they used "the element of surprise". I'm prety sure that smart Generals today do consider similar strategems in order to eliminate 50,000 enemies using as few as 30 men. They cannot use a wooden horse, but they could use other techniques such as camouflage, airborne transports etc. in order to sneak behind enemy lines.— restoring. Odysses (₪) 00:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * on second thought Cynwolfe...


 * if you're teaching a class of bored students and you want to keep them calm and relaxed, then by all means, revert my above edit and pretend that Homer is [yet] just another poet. But if you really want to keep them alert and up to the edge, then tell them that a few lines of Homer correspond to a whole tragedy of Aeschylus or several dozens of pages of a military/civil manual and encourage them to study Homer from sever translated versions as well as from the original. Homer's texts are concentrated, meaningful and philosophical — never ancient, outdated and old-fashioned. Odysses (₪) 02:29, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * 'Ten years' does not mean ten years of 'bloody' fighting. But that's just as an aside. I agree that the camouflage thing doesn't belong - if we can get a reliable source discussing it, maybe, but until then it's original research. Dougweller (talk) 05:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

One might argue that to say "placing about 30 men behind enemy lines and using the element of surprise has some analogies today" is common sense. Odysses (₪) 21:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * How does pretending that "Homer" was "just another poet" help to relax students or, my real point here, justify reinstating "camouflage" into the article? Removed it again. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Replying to User:₪ at 21:18, 20 June 2011: On Wikipedia "there is no common sense", but an exception may be made for you over at Military tactics. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

For those who say that Trojan horse was only used once in Homeric Troy, here are some recent exampes:


 * Operation Trojan Horse" (Korean Central News Agency)
 * 8th Engineer Battalion, code named "Trojan Horse"
 * Electromagnetic weapons (allowed the Greeks to capture Troy without damaging the city's walls)
 * From cyberwarfare to Trojan- horse battlefield tactics
 * An electronic Trojan Horse in Vietnam War
 * Diversity - The Modern Day Trojan Horse
 * Operation Trojan horse during the first Gulf War. A large naval fleet moved off the coast of Kuwait while silently moving ground troops north so they could swing along the border along Iraq and attack by surprise.

Any reasons for not having a "Present day analogies & techniques" section? --Odysses (₪) 22:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Aren't these simply examples of using "Trojan Horse" as a metaphor, as the intro says? "Metaphorically a 'Trojan Horse' has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or space." We could come up with a long list of such usages. I have a higher tolerance for trivia lists than many of the WP colleagues I most esteem, but this article wouldn't benefit from such a list; it would need to meet the criterion for stand-alone lists (see WP:L) as a separate article. And perhaps I'm missing your point, but I take it that you don't intend this as sourcing for the sentence that was deleted? Since I've already had to wash my mouth out with soap today, I'll refrain from exclaiming at the gratuitous personal attack on me. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * They are clearly examples of the use of the phrase as metaphor, and I agree the article wouldn't benefit from such a list. Dougweller (talk) 14:06, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I didn’t propose to add the list into the article. I just wanted to show some recent examples. My point is that the Trojan horse was one of the most devastating, satanic and efficient trick or stratagem ever used in warfare history. Adapted in present day application it may still be as effective, but perhaps Cynwolfe is right: Lets not give someone any bad ideas.--Odysses (₪) 23:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Title
"The Horse of Troy" is the correct title. After all, it was not built by the Trojans, but the Greeks, hence it is hardly a Trojan Horse.

Perhaps the unfortunate computing term has disseminated this misleading title in recent times.

—Or if one wants to be pedantic: "The Greek Horse (of Troy)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎174.44.177.183 (talk • contribs) 01:39 3 April 2012


 * Loads of 19th century books use "Trojan Horse", see . Dougweller (talk) 08:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The name existed in "epic tradition", before the first specific appearance in written English in 1574 (OED). A lazy reference to Google produced about 4 million ghits for "non-computing" trojan horses but only 140,000 for "horse of troy" (computing optional). "The Greek Horse of Troy": just two. Any help?
 * --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * "Trojan Horse" is simply the WP:MOSTCOMMON name, and any (small) ambiguity that the headword might entail is quickly resolved by reading the article's first sentence, no? I can't remember encountering the "Horse of Troy" in a work of classical scholarship, and the computing term is derivative of the common title, not the other way around.  In my opinion it would be an unproductive pedantry to change the title to "Horse of Troy" or "Wooden Horse", which is one title that was used during antiquity. — [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut —  15:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Those in the horse
This list needs some work, to verify the links. Several of them link to disambiguation articles. --rossb 13:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

We're studying it at the moment, and our Latin teacher says that Achilles was well dead by the time the horse was constructed. The movie is historically inaccurate, which is where the confusion may come from. Anyone have a reason why Achilles is on the list? (60.234.30.50 (talk) 00:43, 28 August 2008 (UTC))
 * It was terribly incorrect and I've fixed it. Achilles was killed by an arrow to the heel from Paris, guided by Apollo, shortly after killing Hector. I've also changed Ajax to Ajax the Lesser to avoid confusion with Ajax the Greater who was also dead by that point. 24.226.77.23 (talk) 23:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Achilles is on the list because he was on the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.1.9.214 (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The Trojan Horse Massacre
This external link doesn't seem appropriate for the article. Any objections to removing it? Mikemill (talk) 20:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC) Bad joke yeah remove it REMOVE IT!!!!!!!!! SHould not be there — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.1.9.214 (talk) 20:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Several points
1) Why does the Istanbul horse have obvious windows and a really obvious kind of house on its back?

2) The story parallels the story of the Peat Barge of Breda; I think it should be linked.

3) A commenter above makes the point that the Trojan horse cannot have been a siege engine, yet this is still the article's explanation. Either explain why it could have been a siege engine, or remove the material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 01:30, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Source
I corrected the fundamental mistake that the Trojan Horse account comes from the Iliad; the source is the Odyssey. I added a scholar reference for that. Skater00 (talk) 12:08, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Book II of Virgil's Aeneid
Book II of Virgil's Aeneid covers the siege of Troy, and includes these lines spoken by Laocoön:

equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.

Is it ferentis or ferentes?
 * it's ferentes

WoodenBooks 21:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's ferentis. Araneo ne credite. In fact, if you trust immutable written books rather than corruptible electronic media and the promulgation of errors therefrom, it's "timeo danaos ut dona ferentis" 84.9.84.77 (talk) 02:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the Aeneid was the first source to mention the horse (and that later assumptions that it was the Iliad were misconceptions) but in the article there are lines from the Odyssey that indicate the horse. Was I wrong, or was this one of those examples of a translator departing from the text, or was it even just a misquotation? Sheavsey33 (talk) 12:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector the Trojan prince, and never gets to the end of the war. The horse does get a mention, though. I'd conjecture possibly Virgil picked up on oral tradition. 84.9.84.77 (talk) 02:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Wrong Image
The image captioned "The earliest known depiction of the Trojan Horse ..." doesn't show the Trojan horse or anything related to it, so far as I can see. Delete? Blixton (talk) 04:59, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Zoom in on the image and look closely at the right side. There is a fragment of an image of the Horse.&#32;-- Fyrael (talk) 07:21, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

"Trojan cavalry"
Thanks to Doug for spotting this. The "cavalry" explanation is without merit because of the fact that there was no such thing as "cavalry" at the time. I know the Troy movie has Trojans galloping about the place on horseback, but that's because Hollywood didn't do its research, or just didn't care. --dab (𒁳) 08:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you always this nasty? It was a movie for entertainment, not a documentary.  139.138.6.121 (talk) 03:41, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

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