Was It Ever Real?

Here is the catch most people never hear: the famous wooden horse barely appears in Homer at all. The Iliad ends before the city falls, and the horse gets only a passing mention in the Odyssey.

The vivid scene we all picture — soldiers spilling out at midnight — was filled in centuries later by poets who wanted a great story, not a war report. So the real question is not just whether Troy fell, but whether the horse was ever more than a poet's flourish.