Many of the dreams, prophecies, and lists of genealogies in the Aeneid evoke Homer's works. For example, Aeneas's dream of Hector on the night that Troy falls to the Greeks recalls Achilles's vision, in Book XXIII of the Iliad, of the great warrior Patroclus, who, having been slain by Hector, implores Achilles to perform the funeral rites necessary for his passage into the underworld. Patroclus visits Achilles because he is driven by a profound personal concern, while Hector's appearance, like other incidents in the Aeneid that are based on Homer, is full of patriotic import. This parallel between Hector's and Patroclus's appearances is the only significant reference in the Aeneid's Book II to Homer, who could not have influenced Virgil's description of Troy's fall for the simple reason that his Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector, before Troy is destroyed, while his Odyssey begins ten years after the war is over.
It should be noted, however, that Homer was thoroughly learned in the stories having to do with Troy's fall, particularly the wooden horse, which is referred to three times in the Odyssey — by Helen and Menelaus in Book IV, when Telemachus, Odysseus's son, visits them at Sparta while seeking news of his absent father; by the blind bard Demodocus in the presence of Odysseus, who is being entertained with tales of the Trojan War in the king of Phaeacia's court in Book VIII; and finally by Odysseus himself when, in Book XI, he speaks to Achilles's ghost in the underworld about the bravery of his son Pyrrhus, who, as one of the warriors hidden in the wooden horse, showed no fear while waiting to be sprung from the horse's body cavity.
