  The evolution of compact groups of galaxies may represent one of the few
places in the nearby universe in which massive galaxies are being forged
through a complex set of processes involving tidal interaction, ram-pressure
stripping, and perhaps finally "dry-mergers" of galaxies stripped of their cool
gas. Using collisionless N-body simulations, we propose a possible scenario for
the formation of one of the best studied compact groups: Stephan's Quintet. We
define a serial approach which allows us to consider the history of the group
as sequence of galaxy-galaxy interactions seen as relatively separate events in
time, but chained together in such a way as to provide a plausible scenario
that ends in the current configuration of the galaxies. By covering a large set
of parameters, we claim that it is very unlikely that both major tidal tails of
the group have been created by the interaction between the main galaxy and a
single intruder. We propose instead a scenario based on two satellites orbiting
the main disk, plus the recent involvement of an additional interloper, coming
from the background at high speed. This purely N-body study of the quintet will
provide a parameter-space exploration of the basic dynamics of the group that
can be used as a basis for a more sophisticated N-body/hydrodynamic study of
the group that is necessary to explain the giant shock structure and other
purely gaseous phenomena observed in both the cold, warm and hot gas in the
group.
