Everything we know about Homer is either traditional, mythical, or some kind of an educated guess. Tradition tells us, probably following the Odyssey and one of the so-called "Homeric Hymns" from the middle of the seventh century BC, that Homer, like his own character Demodocus from the Odyssey, was a blind bard or singer of tales.

At least seven different places claimed that Homer was born on their soil in the ancient world. The two with the strongest claims are the Island of Chios and the city of Smyrna (modern Izmir, in Turkey). Because he records many details of Ionian geography and seems to know less about other areas (like western Greece, where the Odyssey is set), and because the most common dialect in Homer's Greek is Ionic, most scholars now believe that Homer probably lived and worked in Ionia, the region along what is now...