On Tricks

If you go to Vatican City, there are not all conspiracies, or old specters of past Popes... There are also lots of pieces of art. Some are among the best pieces made for mankind ever. For instance The Laoconte"

Made by Agnesandre, Polidor and Athenodor of Rode, it represents the figures of three men, Laoconte and his sons, being eaten by a monster. Their expressions shows us pain, fear, despair...

Laoconte was the Supreme Priest of Troy. Master of the Temples, and talker with the Gods. One day, during the War of Troy, he was averted by a Greek Deserter, that Greeks had disappeared from the coast. Apparently they had fled in their vessels, weary of ten years of war, and they had made a big wooden Horse, as an offering to Posidon for a good Trip. But Laoconte distrusted of that, and instead of putting it inside the city, near of Posidon's temple, he advised Priamus to burn the horse "because this is not a gift but a trapp. And even if it were a gift, I fear Greeks even when they make gifts" (Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes).

But suddenly, the Kraken, one of the most terrible beast from the sea, attacked Laoconte and his two sons, killing them all. That was interpreted as a sign from the Gods, and the horse was introduced inside the city.

They had to heard Laoconte. The horse was indeed a trick. Odiseo, King of Ithaca, the Smartest among the Greeks, had thought that, without Achilles, the war was unwinnable by the force. Instead, they need shrewd. So he gave the order to make the wooden horse (an animal sacred both by Greeks and Troyan). Inside the horse, Odiseo and other warriors waited until the city was in silent and sleeping, and made their way to the gates by killing the guards. They opened the gates, and made the Greek Armie pass inside the city. The result of that was mayhem, chaos, slaughter, and finally the fall of the greatest city the ancient east has ever seen (luckily, Aeneas, Ascanius and others could escape, and begin a new Story in Italian Peninsula).