"... readers, remember that my account of what was happening in Sparta or Athens or even Egypt, is all based on real history, but the view was moulded by what I—and many another person—was thinking in the Europe of those days, with Mussolini and his fascists in Italy and already the shadow of Hitler in Germany. If I was writing this book now I might treat my characters and my story differently. But I cannot be certain, even of that."