3391 Sinon
3391.png

This minor planet, a Jovian Trojan, is named after after a figure from Greek myth. He fought in the Trojan war on the side of the Greeks, and he played a key role in the Trojan horse deception. He allowed himself to be captured by the Trojans and pretended to be a defector, and gave a story that convinced the Trojans not only to take in the big famous horse, but also made them think it was their idea. Writers from Aeneas to Dante to Shakespeare cast him as deceitful and evil, but I think there's no arguing that his acting was brilliant.

A point of clarification about how the Trojan horse got into the city of Troy: most people think that the Greeks left it for them as a present, and the Trojans were either too stupid to expect deceit or too vain to refuse a big cool horse. In fact, Sinon crafted the lie that the Greeks built the horse as a tribute to Athena, and the Greeks sure would be upset if somebody else stole the horse and gifted it to Athena themselves. Reverse psychology is, quite literally, the oldest trick in the book.

The symbol of this asteroid is a depiction of Sinon's great deception: a left-facing horse, with an arrow under the front hoof representing the Trojans bringing it into the city of Troy.

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