I read this from a library some years ago when I could not afford to buy it, and finally found an affordable copy to my great satisfaction. This is vividly real historical fiction, as good as say Renault's Praise-Singer. One striking aspect is its assumption that the surviving Greek leaders from Troy were the generation who eventually faced the Dorian conquest. These reminiscences are linked by a gradual awareness of the coming of the barbarians, so there is an overall plot behind the separate tales. Some of the individuals also come across well, notably a remarkably nasty and sordid Thersites. ( )