Several ancient authors tell about the Trojan War at once, and the famous episode with the horse is told differently. There is no single version, but we will analyze the most famous (and strangest) fragments of this story.
1. Trojans have no compelling reason to bring a horse into the city
To take Troy, it must be deprived of the main shrine - palladium.
Odysseus, disguised as a beggar and sneaking into Troy, steals the relic, simultaneously killing the guards. The Greek gods are extremely touchy, but Athena does not react to this in any way.
Then the Danaans burn their camp for the sake of appearance and supposedly run, throwing a wooden horse with the inscription "A gift to the goddess Athena." They were naughty, plundering her temple, and are trying to butter up Pallada by giving her a wooden horse.
Why the goddess should rejoice at this gift is unclear. And the more strange the decision seems to be to put it inside the city.
Virgil explains that the horse will bless the inhabitants of Troy only if it is brought inside. And outside the gate - will not.
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And the Trojans willingly buy into this false information and enthusiastically begin to break down the wall built by Poseidon, since the horse does not pass through the gate.
So-so option: to return the patronage of Pallas (who did not even bother to incinerate Odysseus for sacrilege), finally quarreling with the ruler of the seas.
2. Trojans ignore absolutely all danger warnings
And there are a lot of them. In the "Odyssey" Elena comes up to the horse and starts … talking to the warriors sitting inside the voices of their wives, trying to lure them out. This is, in principle, a very mysterious episode - firstly, by that time Elena has long wanted to sneak home from Troy, and she cannot give Odysseus out. (However, Homer gives a universal explanation for all the oddities: a parodist demon, friendly to the Trojans, temporarily settles in Elena.)
Secondly, the spouse who is next to her does not react to this provocation in any way and does not draw conclusions.
Further, the priest Laocoon warns the Trojans that the horse is a trap. And almost immediately, in front of his compatriots, he is eaten by snakes sent by the unfriendly Troy Poseidon (who, apparently, has his own view of the well-known proverb “you can't put a scarf on every mouth”).
About the prophetess on duty Cassandra, I generally keep quiet: her predictions are always ignored. It should be so.
3. Odyssey's strange plan
The plan is as follows: line up a huge horse that will not get through the gate, and hide in it … to hide in it.
Will she fit? - Let's push!
The Trojans, having swallowed the bait, very quickly dismantled part of the wall. While the horse was zealously “shoved” into the city, one could hear the sound of a weapon ringing in its stomach …
Why would Odysseus and his comrades put themselves at risk and walk along the edge when you can hide in the bushes or visit the city at night? The wall is either dismantled - then you can enter Troy this way; or they won't disassemble it, but the statue will be burned or thrown into the sea (after all, several Trojans offered such options).
Kill the guard? And what is this guard guarding, a break in the wall?
And by the way, Odysseus stole palladium, disguised as a beggar. He already entered Troy completely free without any "horse on wheels" and killed the guards in the temple …
The “many-wise” king of Ithaca completely in vain exposes the best warriors to mortal danger.
Moreover, as Virgil gracefully put it, at night the city was "in wine and buried in sleep." That is, in fact, even without scouts, he was an illustration to the words “come in, good people, take whatever you want” …
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It is very difficult to imagine that the Trojans, clever and skilled in war, displayed such fantastic carelessness, dragging into the city the wooden fauna that they did not need.
The ancient author Dareth of Phrygia, in The Story of the Destruction of Troy, offers a much less spectacular, but more believable version.
So, peace was concluded between the Danaans and the Trojans. The Trojans' vigilance has been put to sleep. But in Troy there are traitors who want to surrender the city to the Greeks (who have not left anywhere, the camp has not been burned and no statues have been built).
The traitor Polydamantes secretly meets with the leaders of the Greeks and advises at night to bring troops to the Skeian gate, on which the head of a horse was carved outside; there at night the detachments of Antenor and Ankhiz are standing, and they will open the gates to the army of the Argives and light a fire that will be a sign of an attack.