(flourished 9th or 8th century &BC;?, Ionia? [now in Turkey]) presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Although these two great epic poems of ancient Greece have always been attributed to the shadowy figure of Homer, little is known of him beyond...

Homer The Homeric poems Iliad and Odyssey (probably eighth century BCE) are of interest to the historian of philosophy because they provide the background, in language and to some extent in thought, from which Greek philosophy emerged. The hexameters of...

HOMER (eighth century BCE), according to unanimous ancient Greek tradition, was the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. His authorship of other epic poems and of long hexametrical hymns was already disputed in antiquity. Tradition assigns to him...

(flourished 9th or 8th century &BC;, Ionia?) Greek poet, one of the greatest and most influential writers of all time. Though almost nothing is known of his life, tradition holds that he was blind. The ancient Greeks attributed to him the great epic...

fl. 900s-800s B.C. Greek poet who is widely credited with writing the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer, who was said to be blind, is thought to have lived in Smyrna or Chios and earned a living by telling stories. The Iliad recounts the...

Sometimes even the good Homer nods off....

Homer is the name given to the purported author of the early Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is now believed by classicists (especially after the studies by Milman Parry) that they were composed by illiterate aoidoi (rhapsodes) in an oral...