This is the story of a sexual predator. Schliemann was an eccentric, to put it politely, but I would even venture to call him a crank. He was 47 when he married 17 year old Sophia, whom he practically purchased from her recently impoverished family. However, the book is interesting in ways I do not think were intended by the author, whose competence I can vouch for.

Schliemann's two great contributions to science were the discoveries of Troy in Türkiye, and of the royal tombs at Mycenae in Greece. However, he tainted what would have been greater achievements than most archaeologists could ever boast of by demolishing ancient ruins which he felt obstructed his search for more valuable ones. Stone never questions this, but nor does he endorse it.

The book is full of quotations from the Greek classics, which I enjoyed. You will learn quite a bit about the Homeric epics and Pausanias, for instance, and a bit less about Greek theatre and the two great historians of that time and place. You will also gain some insight into the difficulties of archaeology. It is seasonal work, and here involved scorching heat and freezing cold. There were snakes and millipedes around the dig sites. Trenches, terraces and tunnels had to be dug. The earth was hard and required many men to move, which have to be paid by the day. There have to be lunch and rest breaks. And above all, there is the difficulty of getting governmental permission to dig up and display the artifacts. Whether one chooses to be generous and say that Schliemann smuggled the Trojan artifacts out of Hissarlik and back to Athens, or that he stole them, as I would, one cannot deny that he misled the authorities. Likewise I can understand Sophia's pain at his sending the Mycenaean treasures out of Greece. Who is this foreigner to play God with our heritage, she must have thought.Sophia herself is quite inspiring. As a woman she made history through her work as an archaeologist, though we know that Schliemann exaggerated her actual contributions. She did lecture at the Royal Geographical Society at a time when a women lecturing men was unusual in the extreme. It is difficult not to overlook how Stone twists and turns to avoid confronting the reality of her being groomed. Yes, Schliemann allowed her to live a more interesting life than most women were able to, but he still took advantage of her.All in all this is an easy read that I would suggest to those who like a good story on a historical theme, though they should always bear in mind that it is a story and not history in the strict sense of the word. How fitting, given so much of the story involves Homer!