The poem, "a fast-paced episodic epic with a lot of ground to cover"[1] — which opened it to Aristotle's criticism that it had more plot than an epic should have[2] — opens with the judgment of Achilles's arms, which are to be awarded to the greatest Greek hero: the contest is between Ajax and Odysseus, who recovered Achilles's body in battle.
Later, in shame, he commits suicide, and is buried without full heroic honours, in a coffin rather than cremated on a funeral pyre, "because of the anger of the king", Agamemnon.
The other two conditions are that the bones of Pelops are recovered from Pisa, a rival of Elis, and that Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, is brought into the war.
Odysseus and Diomedes go into Troy disguised as beggars, where Helen recognises them but keeps their secret; they return safely with the Palladium, killing some Trojans on the way.
The Trojans, believing that the Greeks have departed for good, breach a section of their city wall to bring the horse inside, and celebrate their apparent victory.
The emergence of the heroes from the horse, and the Greeks' destruction of Troy, seem not to be recounted in the Little Iliad, but are left for the Iliou persis.