Homer

Homer is the name given to the poet traditionally said to have composed the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two oldest great works of Greek literature. Almost nothing about him is certain. Ancient writers disagreed about where he was born, and several cities in the Ionian Greek world claimed him. He is often pictured as a blind singer, but this is a tradition rather than established fact. Scholars generally place him around the 9th or 8th century BCE, and many believe the poems grew out of a long habit of spoken storytelling before they were written down. Some doubt that a single person made both works, and the question has been debated for centuries. Whoever shaped them, the two epics became the foundation of Greek education and culture. They gave later writers their models for heroism, war, travel and homecoming, and they have influenced Virgil, Dante, Joyce and countless others. Today they are still read, translated and retold throughout the world.