Sinon is a Greek soldier who participates in the Trojan War and has a key role in the success of the Trojan horse ruse. In Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026), Sinon is played by Canadian actor Elliot Page. However, the character of Sinon is not actually present in either the Odyssey or the Iliad, the epic poems attributed to the poet Homer. Instead, Sinon first appears in the Aeneid, a Latin epic poem written from about 30 to 19 bce by the Roman poet Virgil.
In Virgil’s telling, Sinon pretends to have been abandoned by Odysseus and the other Greeks. He persuades the Trojans that the horse is an offering to Athena that will make Troy impregnable. The Trojans bring the horse inside the city gates, and that night Odysseus and the other Greek warriors inside the horse emerge from their hiding place and open the gates to let in the rest of the Greek army.
In Nolan’s film, the Trojan horse episode is treated as a dishonorable deception that leads to wanton slaughter and religious desecration in Troy. Moreover, Sinon shows the wooden horse to the Trojans believing it to be a genuine gift and is not told about the ruse ahead of time. When he and Odysseus meet in the underworld, Sinon is angry that he was lied to and made to violate Greek honor. The film also depicts Sinon’s background, describing him as a poor Ithacan who joins the Trojan War as a replacement for the cowardly suitor Antinous.