Palladium. A Trojan statue of the goddess Pallas, which represented her as sitting with a spear in her right hand, and in her left a spindle or distaff. On this statue the fate of the city was supposed to depend; for while this sacred image was kept intact, Troy was supposed to be impregnable. The Palladium is said to have fallen from heaven near the tent of Ilus, at the time when that prince was employed in building the citadel of Ilion or Troy; and Apollo, by an oracle, declared that the city should never be taken whilst the Palladium was contained within its walls.
