Earliest Depiction of Trojan Horse

As we see the low state of USC Football, it reminds me of the defeat of Troy, by perfidious greeks, and how the Trojans rose to found Rome conquering both the known world and the unknown frontiers. Troy will rise again. We've descended to football HELL easily. It will take great labor and leadership to rise up again

“Facilis descensus Averno:

Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;

Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,

Hoc opus, hic labor est.

The gates of Hell are open night and day;

Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:

But to return, and view the cheerful skies,

In this task and mighty labor lies.

― Virgil, The Aeneid https://www.gutenberg.org/files/228/228-h/228-h.htm#chap01

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate, And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore. Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;

His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine, And settled sure succession in his line, From whence the race of Alban fathers come, And the long glories of majestic Rome. O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate; What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate; For what offence the Queen of Heav’n began To persecute so brave, so just a man; Involv’d his anxious life in endless cares, Expos’d to wants, and hurried into wars! Can heav’nly minds such high resentment show, Or exercise their spite in human woe?

Against the Tiber’s mouth, but far away, An ancient town was seated on the sea; A Tyrian colony; the people made Stout for the war, and studious of their trade: Carthage the name; belov’d by Juno more Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore. Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav’n were kind, The seat of awful empire she design’d. Yet she had heard an ancient rumour fly, (Long cited by the people of the sky,) That times to come should see the Trojan race Her Carthage ruin, and her tow’rs deface; Nor thus confin’d, the yoke of sov’reign sway Should on the necks of all the nations lay. She ponder’d this, and fear’d it was in fate; Nor could forget the war she wag’d of late For conqu’ring Greece against the Trojan state. Besides, long causes working in her mind, And secret seeds of envy, lay behind;