The Rhodian portions of the story are enlivened by the presence of Celtic foreigner Kavaros, who rises from Chares' slave to fellow soldier, friend, and sculpting assistant, and ultimately saves his former master's life.

The atmosphere of the novel is lightened by Kavaros' entertaining, pointed and improbable tales of his supposedly superhuman ancestor Gargantuos (presumably de Camp's nod to the giant Gargantua, a character in the works of François Rabelais).

De Camp brings in numerous other historical personages of the era, notably Chares' sculpting mentor Lyssipos of Sikyon, the mathematician Eukleidēs, Babylonian historian Berossos (initially as a member of the sculptor's catapult crew), Rhodes's antagonists Demetrios Poliorketes and Antigonus, Egyptian historian Manethos, Egyptian king Ptolemaios, and Demetrios of Phalerum, reputed founder of the Library of Alexandria.

A number of the book's characters are introduced in a symposion Chares attends early on, conducted by a group dubbed "The Seven Strangers," modeled on de Camp's own real-life social club the Trap Door Spiders.

She feels the "long trips to Syria and Egypt ... extend this rich picture of life around the Mediterranean over 2000 years ago" but thinks the speech, "[a]s is the case in many historical novels, ... a bit stilted, sprinkled with 'forsooths' and 'impudent rogues.