10. The Trojan Horse
If
all is fair in love and war, this might be the most forgivable of the big lies.
When the Trojan Paris absconded with Helen, wife of the Spartan king, war exploded. It had been raging
for 10 long years when the Trojans believed they had finally overcome the Greeks.
Little did they know, the Greeks had another trick up their sleeves.
In
a stroke of genius, the Greeks built
an enormous wooden horse with a hollow belly in which men could hide. After the
Greeks convinced their foes that this structure was a peace offering, the
Trojans happily accepted it and brought the horse within their fortified city.
That night, as the Trojans slept, Greeks hidden inside snuck out the trap door.
Then, they proceeded to slaughter and decisively defeat the Trojans.
This
was unquestionably one of the biggest and most successful tricks known to
history -- that is, if it's true. Homer mentions the occurrence in "The
Iliad," and Virgil extrapolates the story in "The Aeneid."
Evidence suggests that Troy itself existed, giving some validity to Homer's
tales, and scholars have long been investigating how historically accurate
these details are. One theory behind the Trojan horse comes from historian
Michael Wood, who proposes that it was merely a battering ram in the shape of a
horse that infiltrated the city [source: Haughton].
