Sinon

Sinon appears in the epic and post-epic narrative tradition of the Trojan War as a Greek left behind after the apparent Greek withdrawal. Identified in genealogical lists as son of Aesimus and grandson of Autolycus in later accounts, he is preserved in traditions that include Virgil's Aeneid, Apollodorus' Bibliotheca, Tryphiodorus' The Taking of Ilios, Hyginus, Dictys Cretensis, and fragments of the Epic Cycle (e.g., Little Iliad/Iliupersis). Across these sources he is a human agent assigned (or who elects) to remain near Troy to carry out a deception: posing as a mistreated deserter to persuade Trojans to bring the wooden horse into the city and, in several versions, to signal the Greek fleet to return or to indicate when the hidden soldiers should emerge.

Surviving accounts offer no fixed physical portrait; descriptions focus on his staged appearance. Tryphiodorus reports that Sinon was deliberately wounded and marked with signs of suffering so he would appear a victim of Greek cruelty. In visual tradition he is sometimes depicted being led or dragged into Troy with the horse behind him, but the literary sources emphasize his role-playing as a wounded suppliant rather than providing a detailed bodily description.

Sinon is characterized by rhetorical skill, performance, and deception rather than supernatural powers. He fabricates a narrative of desertion and mistreatment to gain the Trojans' pity and trust (Virgil, Aeneid; Palaephatus; Tryphiodorus). In some traditions he also serves a practical signaling role: Apollodorus and Dictys Cretensis report that he was left to light a beacon to summon the Greek fleet at Tenedos, and Virgil presents him as coordinating with the Greeks by informing them when soldiers within the horse should emerge. The core competencies ascribed to him in the sources are persuasive speech, feigned victimhood, and serving as a human signaler for the Greeks' return.