Is David Gemmels interpretation of the fall of Troy accurate?

Question

Is David Gemmels interpretation of the fall of Troy accurate? Was King Aeneas actually called Helikaon? Did Odysseus really jump of a cliff and pretend to droun so that small Helikaon could learn to be courageous and save him? Did Helikaon really have a relationship with Andromache and did Achilles really die beside Hektor and not kill him and survive? Did kassandra really die at Thebe and could she really deliver prophecies the way she did? Did Agammenon King and Menalus, and King Idomenous die the way they did? Was Odysseus really a good friend of Helikaon?

Answer 1

not at all, its called historical fiction for a reason.  Mr. Gemmel took a much loved and well known ancient myth and rewrote it for entertainment purposes.  Of course there is no way to know if the mythical characters even existed in real life much less how they acted or what kind of relationships they had to each other.  But for the historic details and the origonal stories and myths, there were quite a few areas where Mr. Gemmel changed things or actually wrote the opposite to suit his story instead of sticking with pure fact or the origonal tales - and that's quite all right.  He never claimed he was writing history.  He was writing fiction and his point was to make a story that was entertaining and enjoyable for his readers.  If you liked his book - then he succeeded.  If he convinced you to dig even deeper into history or the Iliad or that part of the world, then its even better.  

Answer 2

I doubt it very much. The whole tale is mostly myths, anyhow. David Gemmels sounds like a con man rewriting old tales to make some money from his nonsense. Aeneas was not the King of Troy. Priam was.