Paris, however, was killed in the final stages of the war when Greek warrior Philoctetes shot him with the great bow of Heracles. Helen was then given to Paris’s brother Deiphobus. Their union did not last long, however. Soon afterward the Trojans fell victim to a cunning Greek plan. They unwittingly let into the walled city a few Greek soldiers who were hiding inside a giant wooden horse.
The Suitors’ Oath
Helen was the most beautiful woman on earth, and when the time came for her to marry, she had so many suitors, all from royal families of Greece, that her stepfather Tyndareos was afraid that all the disappointed suitors would quarrel with whomever he chose as her husband. Apollodorus wrote that Odysseus, the wise king of Ithaca, suggested to Tyndareos that he make all the suitors swear an oath to defend Helen's husband, whoever was chosen, against anyone who damaged their marriage. All the suitors agreed to the oath, and Tyndareos then safely chose Menelaus. When Paris, who was not among Helen's suitors, later eloped with her to Troy, Agamemnon used the oath the former suitors had taken to coerce them to form an alliance against Troy.
Several classical authors mention the suitors' oath. In addition to Apollodorus, it is referred to by Pausanias, as well as by the fifth-century-BCE Athenian historian Thucydides, among others. Homer, however, who tells the story of the Trojan War in the greatest detail, never mentions the oath. It is possible that the oath was invented by a poet after Homer's time, but it is equally possible that Homer chose to omit the story of the oath from his poems. This left him free to depict the Greeks as allying voluntarily against Troy.
During the night the Greeks emerged from the wooden horse and opened the city’s gates, enabling the rest of the Greek army to invade the fortress.
World History
