ordered the cords with which the peasants had
bound the captive to be sundered, that he might stand before them
free. The king spoke to him, too, in a kind and encouraging manner.
"Forget your countrymen," said he. "They are gone. Henceforth you
shall be one of us. We will take care of you. And now," he
continued, "tell us what this monstrous image means. Why did the
Greeks make it, and why have they left it here?"

Sinon, as if grateful for the generosity with which his life had been
spared, professed himself ready to give his benefactors the fullest
information. He told them that the wooden horse had been built by the
Greeks to replace a certain image of Pallas which they had previously
taken and borne away from Troy. It was to replace this image, Sinon
said, that the Greeks had built the wooden horse; and their purpose
in making the image of this monstrous size was to prevent the
possibility of the Trojans taking it into the city, and thus
appropriating to themselves the benefit of its protecting efficacy and
virtue.

The Trojans listened with breathless interest to all that Sinon said,
and readily believed his story; so admirably well did he counterfeit,
by his words and his demeanor, all the marks and tokens of honest
sincerity in what he said of others, as well of grief and despair in
respect to his own unhappy lot. The current of opinion which had begun
before to set strongly in favor of destroying the horse, was wholly
turned, and all began at once to look upon the colossal image as an
object of sacred veneration, and to begin to form plans for
transporting it within the limits of the city. Whatever remaining
doubts any of them might have felt on the subject were dispelled by
the occurrence of a most extraordinary phenomenon just at this stage
of the affair, which was understood by all to be a divine judgment
upon Laocoon for his sacriligious temerity in striking his spear into
the horse's side. It had been determined to offer a sacrifice to
Neptune. Lots were drawn to determine who should perform the rite. The
lot fell upon Laocoon. He began to make preparations to perform the
duty, assisted by his two young sons, when suddenly two immense
serpents appeared, coming up from the sea. They came swimming over the
surface of the water, with their heads elevated above the waves, until
they reached the shore, and then gliding swiftly along, they advanced
across the plain, their bodies brilliantly spotted and glitte