Homer

Homer is the poet to whom the Greeks attributed the Iliad and the Odyssey, and he probably lived in the eighth century BC. Of his life the ancients left only legends: he was said to be a blind singer from Ionia in Asia Minor, and seven cities claimed to be his birthplace. Modern scholars believe the two epics took shape within a long tradition of oral song before one or more poets of genius gave them their final form. Whoever Homer was, his poems were the foundation of Greek education and stand at the source of all Western literature.