Homer first wrote of the Trojan war in The Iliad, a story filled with enduring characters: Helen, Paris, Achilles, Hector and Odysseus, to name but a few. And it ends with one of the great misdirection moves in the annals of martial affairs.

How much of this fabled conflict is true and how much is myth?

Author Barry Strauss, who previously impressed the critics with his book Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece and Western Civilization, revisits the classic material in The Trojan War: A New History.