The Trojan Horse: a book club kit

Where it comes from. Homer, a poet in Greece, sang of the wooden horse about 2,700 years ago, and Virgil, a poet in Rome, told its whole story 2,000 years ago.

In short (for the leader; it gives the ending away). After ten years of war, the Greeks cannot break into the walled city of Troy. They build a giant hollow wooden horse, hide soldiers inside it and sail away as if they have given up. The Trojans pull the horse into their city to celebrate, and that night the soldiers climb out and open the gates for the Greek army.

The lesson, in one line. Look carefully at a gift that seems too good to be true.

Reading plan, by the story's parts. Meeting 1: Part One, “Ten Years at the Walls”, pages 1–3 (about 3 minutes aloud); Meeting 2: Part Two, “The Gift on the Beach” and Part Three, “Inside the Walls”, pages 4–9 (about 5 minutes aloud); Meeting 3: Part Four, “The Night” and Part Five, “After”, pages 10–15 (about 5 minutes aloud). Each stop's own questions, which never give away what comes next: The Trojan Horse by chapter.

Questions to talk about

1. Is the Trojan Horse a true story?
   The story's answer: Troy was a real city, and its ruins are at a place called Hisarlık in Turkey. Some historians think the stories of the Trojan War remember a real war from around 1200 BC, but nobody has found evidence of a wooden horse or of any other particular event from the legends. A few scholars have guessed that the horse began as a siege machine, a ship or a way of describing an earthquake, but those are only guesses. The horse itself is a legend.
2. Who built the Trojan Horse?
   The story's answer: In the Greek stories the horse was built by a carpenter named Epeius, with help from the goddess Athena. Odysseus of Ithaca is named as the chief planner of the trick.
3. Where does the Trojan Horse story come from?
   The story's answer: It comes from the Greek tales of the Trojan War. Homer's Odyssey, from about 2,700 years ago, mentions the horse in passing. The Roman poet Virgil told the whole story in the Aeneid about 2,000 years ago, and his is the fullest ancient telling that survives.
4. What does “Trojan horse” mean today?
   The story's answer: A Trojan horse is a trick that gets something harmful past your guard by hiding it inside something that looks friendly. In computing, a Trojan horse is a harmful program that fools people into running it.
5. What does this myth explain, or try to explain?
   Listen for: Many myths explain how something came to be: a season, an animal, a name.
6. Was the main character right or wrong? Was the ending fair?
   Listen for: Myths are often hard on people; let the group disagree.

Did you know?

• The Greeks called it the doureios hippos, which means “wooden horse.”
• Homer's Odyssey mentions the horse, but his Iliad stops before it. The Roman poet Virgil told it in the most detail, in the Aeneid.
• In the old stories the carpenter Epeius built it with the goddess Athena's help, and Odysseus was the planner.

Activity: Make a new myth

Each reader explains something they see every day (why cats purr, why puddles dry up) with a short made-up myth of their own, told round the circle in three sentences.