Inside, the fabric is full of armed Greeks. How many there were in number has been disputed--though possibly, in a legend of this kind, the question of more or fewer is scarcely relevant. It is a question, however, which derives some interest from the fact that it was one of the difficulties which exercised the mind of the first Napoleon during his exile. Studying the siege of Troy as if it were a mere prosaic operation in modern warfare, he was struck by the improbability of the whole stratagem. How “even a single company of the Guard” could be hid in such a machine, and dragged from some distance inside the city walls, the French Emperor was unable to conceive, and regarded the story as an infringement of even a poet’s licence. Napoleon was not much of a Latin scholar, and, so far as the main point of his criticism went, had depended too implicitly upon French translators. Segrais, discussing the question in a note, thought there might be perhaps some two or three hundred. Indeed most of our English translators have gone out of their way to exaggerate the number. But Virgil himself, as has been pertinently remarked by Dr Henry, only makes nine men actually come out of the horse, all of whom he mentions by name. The poet certainly does not say in so many words that these were all, but he, at least, is not answerable for a larger number. Among the nine are the young Neoptolemus, surnamed Pyrrhus--“Red-haired,”--son of the dead Achilles, and now his successor in the recognised championship of the force; Sthenelus, the friend and comrade of Diomed (for whose absence it seems hard to account); Machaon, the hero-physician, whom one hardly expects to find selected for such a desperate service; Epeus, the contriver of the machine; and Ulysses, without whose aid and presence no such stratagem would seem complete. At dead of night the traitor Sinon looked out to sea, and saw a light in the offing. It was the fire-signal from Agamemnon’s vessel; the Greek fleet had come back under cover of the darkness from its lurking-place at Tenedos. Then he silently undid the fastenings of the horse, and the Greek adventurers, as has been said, emerged from their wooden prison. In the visions of the night Æneas saw the ghastly spectre of the dead Hector stand before him,-- “All torn by dragging at the car, And black with gory dust of war. * * * * * Ah, what a sight was there to view! How altered from the man we knew, Our Hector, who from day’s long toil Comes radiant in Achilles’ spoil, Or with that red right hand, which casts The fires of Troy on Grecian masts! Blood-clotted hung his beard and hair, And all those many wounds were there, Which on his gracious person fell Around the walls he loved so well.”