In Greek mythology, Sinon (also Sinopos) was a Greek warrior left behind when the Achaean host feigned withdrawal to Tenedos. Through a false tale of desertion he persuaded the Trojans to bring the Wooden Horse inside the walls, then lit the beacon that guided the fleet back for the sack. Homer never names him; his fullest classical portrait is in Virgil's Aeneid Book 2, with parallel roles in Apollodorus, Hyginus, Quintus of Smyrna, and Tryphiodorus.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Sinon" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family and role
Sinon was son of Aesimus, son of Autolycus, and thus cousin to Odysseus. He is absent from the Iliad and Odyssey but central to later accounts of the horse stratagem: the Greeks hide chosen warriors in the hollow engine, burn their tents, sail to Tenedos by night, and leave Sinon ashore as the living instrument of the ruse.
II.The false tale and the beacon
In the Aeneid, shepherds drag Sinon before Priam. Pretending to be Odysseus's victim abandoned to die, he claims the horse is an offering to Athena made deliberately too large to enter the city — because bringing it inside would make Troy invincible. The Trojans, swayed also by Laocoön's death among the serpents, haul the horse within the walls against Cassandra's warnings.
Apollodorus and Dictys stress his signal duty: when night falls he kindles a beacon on Achilles' grave so the fleet can return from Tenedos. Hyginus credits him with opening the horse so the Achaeans can kill the gate-guards and admit their comrades. Quintus has the Trojans mutilate him (ears and nose) before he speaks; Tryphiodorus adds deliberate wounds so he looks like a Greek victim. Palaephatus rationalizes the tale as a horse too large for the gates, forcing the Trojans to breach their own wall.
III.Art and later reception
Pausanias saw Sinon in Polygnotus' painting of Troy's fall at Delphi, carrying off Laomedon's body with Anchialus as a companion of Odysseus. Dante places him among the falsifiers in Inferno; Shakespeare uses him as a byword for treacherous tears and cunning oratory. The Virgilian Sinon became the type of Greek deceit in Roman and later European literature.